Student-at-law, UCP VP Candidate, husband, father, Albertan, Catholic, fighter, and fool. Politics, history, law, philosophy, economics. https://nitter.gq/t.co/pjTNkdS1Fl
Calgary, Alberta
Joined March 2010
- Tweets2K
- Following1.1K
- Followers320
- Likes11.3K
TJ Schmidt retweeted
Late-stage democracy is more descriptive than “end-stage capitalism.” What you’re seeing is a predictable failure mode of a system in which people can vote themselves more money. That’s not a failure of capitalism, that’s unrestrained democracy robbing capitalism.
I'm in my 40s. I'm a lawyer. My wife is a lawyer. We both work full time.
We cannot afford the house my parents purchased on a single electrician's income in their 30s.
We cannot afford the house my immigrant grandparents purchased on a single MTA bus driver's salary in their 30s. They had SIX CHILDREN.
For 30 years, politicians in Washington & their oligarch allies convinced regular people that this was just about avocado toast and fancy coffee.
In reality, this is end-stage capitalism. Everyone is stuck in place. It's impossible to buy a home. It's too costly to move. We work too much to have passion projects. We don't have enough savings to start our own businesses. We can't afford to go without healthcare to do it.
Thanks for writing this article @troy_closson. Would be very happy to discuss further.
nytimes.com/2026/10/25/nyreg…
TJ Schmidt retweeted
When I listen to tech people talk about economics and politics, I'm increasingly reminded of public health experts on Covid.
The experts on Covid knew a lot about biology. They could tell us how the disease could spread, explain the concept of R₀, and tell us that vaccines would be good for us. They were "right" about a lot when they stuck to what they knew.
But when epidemiologists started talking about politics and what to do about covid, they were completely out of their depth. They didn't have the tools to do cost-benefit analysis regarding policies like mask mandates, school closures, and lockdowns. They had half-baked theories about human psychology and could justify lying because they didn't understand that this might cause a political backlash.
Tech people know a lot about AI. But then I hear them talk about all jobs going extinct and hyper charged growth. They have crackpot ideas about political economy, and predict that the welfare state will disappear as the value of labor declines. And yet you don't find AI leading to supercharged growth, and the unemployment rate hasn't changed. Their predictions that the welfare state might wither away and a few rich people might capture all the gains show no signs of being true. They're just speculation, and the kinds of ideas that people who study economics and political science generally find a lot less plausible.
Another parallel is that the tech industry is experiencing a political backlash, just as the public health establishment did. I don't want to stretch this analogy too far, but I think that the common theme is that both communities were way too overconfident about their understanding of politics and social dynamics.
TJ Schmidt retweeted
My most provocative view is that in light of overwhelming and tragic evidence of Canadian health care failures, single-payer dogmatism should be subject to the same disdain and ostracism accorded to other extremist political positions.
WATCH: New data shows more than 1.5M Canadians spent more than 14 hours in emergency rooms, with approximately 180K admitted patients waiting 48 hours for a bed. ctvnews.ca/northern-ontario/…
TJ Schmidt retweeted
25 years ago today, Justice Scalia delivered his classic "What Is Golf" dissent in PGA Tour v. Martin:
“If one assumes … that the PGA TOUR has some legal obligation to play classic, Platonic golf … then we Justices must confront what is indeed an awesome responsibility. It has been rendered the solemn duty of the Supreme Court of the United States … to decide What Is Golf. I am sure that the Framers of the Constitution, aware of the 1457 edict of King James II of Scotland prohibiting golf because it interfered with the practice of archery, fully expected that sooner or later the paths of golf and government, the law and the links, would once again cross, and that the judges of this august Court would some day have to wrestle with that age-old jurisprudential question, for which their years of study in the law have so well prepared them: Is someone riding around a golf course from shot to shot really a golfer? The answer, we learn, is yes. The Court ultimately concludes, and it will henceforth be the Law of the Land, that walking is not a ‘fundamental’ aspect of golf. Either out of humility or out of self-respect (one or the other) the Court should decline to answer this incredibly difficult and incredibly silly question.”
TJ Schmidt retweeted
“To eliminate suffering entirely would mean, in the end, extinguishing love and desire as well. Those who love and desire cannot avoid passing through trial and suffering; and over the years, we carry within us lessons that leave their mark like scars, the memories of a journey shaped by freedom and failure, dreams and disappointments.
It is only thanks to the interplay of these elements that the wonders of the soul occur within us, allowing us to sense the richness of our humanity.
To renounce this adventure, both tragic and splendid, in the name of a presumed transcendence of all limits, could mean many things, but it would no longer be human.”
Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas (par. 120) (May 15, 2026)
TJ Schmidt retweeted
I hope for Thomas Massie's sake he retires to his farm and lives the rest of his life in peace. For all of our sakes I hope he goes scorched earth and becomes president
TJ Schmidt retweeted
“Give them a massive amount of oil, agricultural land, copper, freshwater, and every natural resource in the world. Now make them neighbors with the biggest market in the world. Great, now have them leave the resources in the ground and instead flip condos to each other”.
TJ Schmidt retweeted
There. Is. Nothing. Wrong. With. Scalping.
Ontario is just hopeless.
apple.news/A1gPofJSYR32dfxct…
TJ Schmidt retweeted
It’s very cool that I can’t use AI to locate quotes from ancient historians because Google doesn’t like the content of those quotes. Look at the thinking process. It finds the quote perfectly fine, but then pretends it can’t. AI is censoring Roman history.
TJ Schmidt retweeted
A free internet being necessary to the liberty of a modern people, the right of parents to decide when their kids are ready to shitpost and doomscroll shall not be infringed.
TJ Schmidt retweeted
A controversial opinion of mine is that socialising is like exercise. Even if you don't feel in the mood to do it, you should still be doing it because it's good for you.
TJ Schmidt retweeted
Those who argue that AI will cause mass unemployment often fail to recognize that in equilibrium, output must equal income.
If AI ends up boosting productivity, it will also boost income.
Admittedly, you can have a situation where the income gains are so skewed towards the rich, who tend to save a lot, that aggregate demand still falls short of supply.
But then you have to ask some basic macroeconomic questions, such as why wouldn’t central banks cut interest rates in that environment and why wouldn’t governments take advantage of rapid growth and cheap financing to run larger budget deficits?
In conclusion, I think that the biggest challenge with AI will be to deploy it safely. If that can be done, the economic benefits will far outweigh the costs.
TJ Schmidt retweeted
Indeed. The history of tech impact on labor is well-documented, including by those named. It's unpredictable, but usually improves productivity and leads to expansion. Law & white-collar workers aren't horse-buggy drivers or elevator operators. They will use AI and adapt.
Dario is wrong.
He knows absolutely nothing about the effects of technological revolutions on the labor market.
Don't listen to him, Sam, Yoshua, Geoff, or me on this topic.
Listen to economists who have spent their career studying this, like @Ph_Aghion , @erikbryn , @DAcemogluMIT , @amcafee , @davidautor
TJ Schmidt retweeted
In 1900, 41% of the US labor force was in jobs related to farming. By 2000, farm mechanization had reduced that to less than 2%.
If you went back to 1900 and told them that farm mechanization was going to eliminate nearly half the jobs in the US, you’d be hearing the same stuff you’re hearing now.
But for every job lost, many more were created. It’s not the end of labor. No UBI will be necessary. People who say this don’t give the human race enough credit.
AI/robotics is a layer, just like Faraday’s discovery, on which entire industries will be built that we can’t even fathom for many generations to come.
TJ Schmidt retweeted
Teaching kids not to trust cops and/or robots from an early age turned out to be a vital 21st century skill
This Post is from a suspended account. Learn more
TJ Schmidt retweeted
The cost of regulatory delay in Canada: soon to be over $1 billlion.
Generic semaglutide (the drug in Ozempic and Wegovy) became legal in Canada in January 2026. Although 9 applications are pending, Health Canada has still not approved one. 3 months and counting!
In the US, Apotex just received FDA approval 6 years before generics are legal. In India, a number of generic drug applications were approved the same day generics became legal.
Meanwhile in Canada, Ozempic and Wegovy earned more than $3.5 billion in 2025. Assuming a 65% savings with generics, a six-month delay in approval and market entry costs Canadian public and private purchasers over $1 billion.
In 2024, public drug plans spent $807 million on Ozempic, meaning the cost of delay to the public purse is in the hundreds of millions.
What are we waiting for?
Apotex wins tentative FDA approval for generic Ozempic, drug makers await Health Canada decisions theglobeandmail.com/business…
