"The US accounts for more than 20% of global tissue consumption despite having only 4% of the world’s population. The average American uses 141 rolls of toilet paper per year, making them No 1 for No 2s globally, just ahead of Germans, each using an average of 134 rolls annually."
I'm not sure if using a bidet would be better for the environment but maybe this is a blessing in disguise on the environmental front.
I'm also curious, is there any reporting on increases in Canadian prices as a result of their tariffs on American products or does that only go one way? I always read (especially in international papers like the Guardian) about Americans seeing price increases but I see very little reporting on price increases/decreases or changes in other countries.
Also maybe someone can remind me, in the past (before Trump 1 even) were there any tariffs on American products that anyone can point to? I see on the news channels discussion about how Canada has historically placed tariffs American dairy products. Did that result in higher prices in Canada? How did their economy handle the lack of American dairy imports at lower prices (if they were lower)?
Once you go bidet, you don't go back. There are lots of nice kits that you can install on your existing toilet too, making it super easy. [1] is a generic Amazon search. Electricity not required for most
I'm not sure how to discuss bidet problems without sounding gross.
I tried a bidet previously because people rave about them. But when trying them, there seems to be two problems. The water that hits you sprays around on impact. So that immediately-sullied water now has a bit of blast radius to it. I also can't see down there, so having done what certainly felt like a pretty thorough job bidet-ing, I would wipe and discover the job was not so thorough. So although you could potentially use a bidet to reduce your toilet paper usage, toilet paper itself allows you to actually check whether or not you got everything, which just seems impossible with a bidet alone. And if I only used the bidet, then what am I supposed to do to dry myself? It feels like TP needs to be in the mix at least a little bit.
Am I just using it wrong? Does a lifetime of using it give your brain a clearer sense of where the water has hit and what "clean" feels like.
Yes, Canadian dairy prices were always higher than US prices, probably by 10-20 percent or so. There's an internal quota system, and a prescribed allowable volume for imports with very high tariffs on imports above that prescribed limit. Canada did this to protect its dairy industry, and to ensure there's a level of self sufficiency to their food production.
Canada has the same issue in many industries, where the need/desire for Canadian firms to compete against US firms - even though Canada has a population roughly a tenth the size of the US - results in a handful of bloated monopolies/monopsonies that the Canadian population has to deal with.
For an alternative perspective you can look at the US healthcare system, where the US has a protectionist system that props up its healthcare industry (insurance, providers, pharma companies, etc) at the expense of its population, to the tune of about 2x what Canada spends per capita.
Canadians who live near the border will commonly hop over for some shopping and fill up their tank with cheap gas, while Americans try to fill their prescriptions from Canadian pharmacies and travel to Mexico for procedures they can't afford to get done in the US. It's all a matter of what the system is set up to do.
Got it, so really Canada has historically instituted protectionist policies to protect certain industries and ensure self-sufficiency for items deemed important to national security/national welfare and the result at least in part is consolidation into monopolistic entities in Canada.
I'm curious what options Canada has to break up these monopolies and lower prices with respect to their ongoing protectionist policies?
Honestly, most of the incentives aren't aligned with breaking them up or trying to lower prices. If the large corporate entities were broken up, they wouldn't have the scale to compete against their much larger American counterparts. They'd either get pushed out or bought up. And low prices aren't the goal for a company that is protected by government policies - they'll aim to maximize profits within the policy framework instead, and the framework itself does the job of preventing competition from smaller upstart rivals.
Think of the Canadian aircraft manufacturer Bombardier. Canada wants to keep a domestic aircraft manufacturer around so they have a backup in case of US shenanigans (like what just happened with the F-35) so the government ensures there's ongoing contracts for those domestic aircraft as well as subsidies for things like manufacturing plant expansion or modernization. But Canada's population only needs so many aircraft, so why would they waste government resources on a new upstart rival aircraft manufacturer? Bombardier knows this too, so why would they spend their own resources on R&D or modernization when they know they can get the government to pay for it instead? It's a feedback loop, and not necessarily a good one.
It really seems like Canada is in a tough spot economically. They don't have the scale to compete against, say, China or the United States but they want to protect domestic industries against foreign competition and so have enacted trade barriers and other protectionist policies like supporting Bombardier (or the dairy industry or whatever) even if it means higher prices for Canadiens and goes against free trade practices.
In my mind that makes a lot more sense as to why, at least in part, there is the ongoing trade dispute between the US and Canada (whether I agree or disagree with it and how it is handled would be a different matter). The US also seeks to in part protect domestic industries that are being outcompeted by China or face significant regulatory barriers (diary industry in Canada for example, other various exports to the EU, Chinese ban on American technology companies) and so we're winding up in a world where the US is now also putting the hammer down on protecting industries like the EU, China, and seemingly Canada does which is causing a lot of political conflict over trade and jobs.
It seems inevitable that as one or more countries put up trade barriers (EU, Canada, China being some large ones here) the US and others would eventually respond if they found that they were unable to compete on price due to government intervention.
The US also has significant agriculture subsidies. Most developed countries do.
In dairy, for example, if prices get "too low", the US directly buys excess supply to increase the price, makes direct payments to dairy farmers, and subsidizes feed (corn/soybeans) and farmers' insurance.
Most historical trade agreements between the US and friendly nations tolerated minor interventions and subsidies on both sides.
Trump is taking a completely different tact. His goal is not free trade or sustainable relationships. He recognizes the US is the stronger party in most of these negotiations, and wants to use that to extract concessions that explicitly favor the US, even if it strains and damages the economies of historical allies.
> Trump is taking a completely different tact. His goal is not free trade or sustainable relationships. He recognizes the US is the stronger party in most of these negotiations, and wants to use that to extract concessions that explicitly favor the US, even if it strains and damages the economies of historical allies.
I don't think that's even it. The end goal is humiliation of the other party. Trump would be pro-humiliation even if that didn't favour the US economically. (As it typically doesn't.)
Right, my understanding is that the US along with most developed countries provide agricultural subsidies and/or tariff agricultural products from other countries or provide other formal or informal trade barriers. Makes sense, in a way, as you need to keep your agricultural base if you have one. It seems logical that this could extend to other industries, car manufacturing, weapons/missiles, semiconductors, other various technologies. Healthcare. You get the picture.
But I think your comment about Trump is not quite nuanced enough and of course you have to include that the US is negotiating with other powerful parties like the EU and China so it's not really always the US negotiating with weaker parties. At the negotiating table I view each of those big 3 has having many cards to play, and both weaknesses and strengths that can be exploited.
When I say it's not nuanced enough what I mean is that, for example, American technology companies are simply banned from operating in China. In Europe, until I believe July or something American car exports were tariffed at a 10% rate, and then you have policies like the Online Streaming Act in Canada (I'm not exactly up to date on the current status but just recall it existing).
So while Trump's negotiating style is, arguably something to abhor, I think painting these engagements as simply a matter of Donald Trump isn't interested in free trade or sustainable relationships to be a bit off the mark. For example, you can't simultaneously claim that Donald Trump isn't interested in free trade while ignoring trade barriers put in place before he was even elected president. I'd also argue that in general most countries and people aren't actually interested in free trade and that it's more of a political tool, because that would require abandoning subsidies and protections and there are obviously very bad potential repercussions of doing so.
De Havilland is another Canadian aircraft manufacturer, and is expanding massively right now. But I suppose they serve a different, simpler market than Bombardier.
Kinda? Originally a Canadian subsidiary of a British company, privatized in the 80's, then sold to Boeing, then bought back by Bombardier with big financial support from the Ontario government, then sold off to a domestic buyer in a corporate restructuring. Their big commercial aviation product is an old Bombardier design.
To your point - Even as domestic "competition", the market is still separated by aircraft type.
And honestly, their history is a good example of why countries act in this way. When they were sold to Boeing, it seemed to be a way for Boeing to "grease the wheels" in order to land a big Air Canada contract. When Airbus got the contract instead, Boeing immediately put De Havilland up for sale and let the company languish until it was purchased by Ontario/Bombardier. Corporate histories can be interesting!
> I'm also curious, is there any reporting on increases in Canadian prices as a result of their tariffs on American products or does that only go one way?
The current counter-tariffs haven't taken effect yet, but yes, various products saw price increases with the previous sets.
Though TBH, I personally saw more increases in prices from American tariffs on Chinese goods where American sellers couldn't be bothered to sell goods to Canada without first importing to the US and just tacked on a price increase for all buyers. To the best of my ability I've avoided those products/sellers.
You only need electricity if you want heated water, I’d guess that a bidet comes with a tee fitting with a valve on the T side that goes in between the supply valve and toilet supply line, allowing the supply valve to provide water to both the toilet and bidet.
During the lockdowns, my local Catholic parish office indicated to me that they held some TP in reserve, in case any parishioners got desperate during the shortages. There were really problematic runs on items like that in every store in our area. Of course, if you had excess TP, it was also a good strategic donation, for the less fortunate.
I contemplated a bidet during the lockdowns, and some YouTubers were touting their convenience and comfort. But ultimately, I rent an apartment with a landlady, and there's no way a bidet could get installed and survive my lease agreement.
So I decided that a good compromise was to start buying wet wipes. I found the "Sensitive" Huggies to be fairly good. Unscented and gentle. There's also "Honest" brand at Target, marketed to adults. Supposedly flushable. I don't flush them.
It's been working out so well that I carry around the wet wipes in my pocket, everywhere I go. They have saved me in many situations in many public restrooms. And they can also clean up my hands if I happen to get muddy or gritty while I'm out and about.
A) Don't flush your wet wipes please. They go in the trash bin.
B) They make bidets that are trivial to install/remove. I have one that connects inline with the water lines and it took like 4 minutes to install. But you can also get a portable one. They range from squirt bottle for your bum to fancy battery powered devices with USB-c charging.
As someone on the border, the tariffs do screw over individual folks on both sides of it.
Canadian grocery prices are awfully high and they've been known for various price-fixing scandals (the Loblaws bread-fixing apology gift cards come to mind) so there's often a lot of Canadian Walmart/Sams Club/Local Grocery shoppers.
One of the odd things is that Americans had it better coming back to the US from Canada after a day out shopping - we could bring back $800, but the Canadians going home could only bring back $50 or so, unless they were out for more than 48 hours then got $800. US Customs was also hilariously lax on actually enforcing things ("anything to declare?" "ah, I spent $200 at IKEA" gets a handwave) compared to the Canadians that'll fine-tooth comb the vehicle to pull every penny of duty they can coming home to Canada.
I'm simultaneously surprised and not surprised that this exists (we buy washable paper towels and beeswax items and similar for reusability) but even I think that's even a bridge too far. More power to anyone who is using those products though.
I've personally always found US customs easy to deal with for purchased products. When we came back from France last year with around a case of wine my wife was worried and I'm like what is there to worry about? we're not smuggling anything and the worst case is we just pay a duty on the wine of a $1 or $2. You just declare it and if duties are applicable you just pay them. It always seemed to me they were really there to just keep people from doing crazy things or outright breaking import laws. Similar to your experience, coming back from Toronto with a few purchased items, US customs just did not care at all.
Canadian duty is insane on some items. When I was a pimply-faced youth at the Duty Free, the going rate we used to tell people was "a dollar an ounce".
I saw some spirits that were quoted at $40-80+ a bottle, depending on a bunch of factors, when you go over the relatively small limit. Bringing home a case of Kentucky sipping burbon to Toronto will hurt you right in the wallet a few times over.
I thought this was a fun tidbit:
I'm not sure if using a bidet would be better for the environment but maybe this is a blessing in disguise on the environmental front.I'm also curious, is there any reporting on increases in Canadian prices as a result of their tariffs on American products or does that only go one way? I always read (especially in international papers like the Guardian) about Americans seeing price increases but I see very little reporting on price increases/decreases or changes in other countries.
Also maybe someone can remind me, in the past (before Trump 1 even) were there any tariffs on American products that anyone can point to? I see on the news channels discussion about how Canada has historically placed tariffs American dairy products. Did that result in higher prices in Canada? How did their economy handle the lack of American dairy imports at lower prices (if they were lower)?