As Democrats Make Course Correction, Symptoms of Desperation Become Evident

Political analyst David Axelrod attends a Democratic presidential debate at Wynn Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nev., on Oct. 13, 2015. Axelrod has accused President Donald Trump of ruthlessness in wishing to reopen the country. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Commentary

Already and after the briefest of resistance, the Democrats are abandoning the trenches of their latest line of defense and fleeing to the rear.

Just as they were settling in to advocacy of a prolonged shutdown to ensure they had a great economic depression to hang around the neck of the president on Election Day, and the inimitable Paul Krugman of The New York Times, the first winner of President Donald Trump’s coveted Fake News Prize, was on May 21 asking, “How many people have to die for the Dow?” the ground began to shift again.

Somewhere in the upper echelons of that formerly and long-great party, a vision occurred of what an impossible argument the Democrats were making. They were placing all their bets on a sharp upward spike in the coronavirus to disrupt the economic reopening, a solid lock-step alliance with the pandemic in their enthusiasm to promote a Great Depression that would produce such a public revulsion that Joe Biden would levitate from his Delaware basement to the great White House of the people.

U.S. Senator Rand Paul - Facts matter

US Sen. Rand Paul (KY-R) was attacked in an opinion piece from KPR. The author was literally lecturing one of the few elected officials who actually has the scientific background and medical training to comment on the COVID studies. The following op-ed is Sen. Paul’s response:

I don’t think any medical professional would enjoy receiving a lecture from someone who is clearly scientifically illiterate.

Ryland Barton’s charged, leftwing diatribe scolding me for making “claims [not] backed up by science” is itself ignorant of and misrepresentative of abundant scientific evidence.

Take first his assertion that infection with coronavirus does not induce immunity. Actually, all of the science so far indicates that those who recover from the virus have immunity.

Canada was warned not to cozy up to Huawei and Beijing. Now here we are.

Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei, leaves her home to go to B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver, Wednesday, May 27, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward

Terry Glavin: We listened instead to Jean Chrétien and the pro-PRC Liberal old guard. Remember that if — or when — Xi Jinping takes revenge over the Meng Wanzhou decision.

For all anybody knows, now that Justice Heather Holmes has rendered a markedly unfavourable decision in the case of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, the notoriously petulant and sadistic Chinese supreme leader Xi Jinping will retaliate against Canada by instructing his secret police to abduct and imprison some more Canadians. As will be understood by anyone who has taken any notice of the Xi regime’s erratic and belligerent brinksmanship everywhere in the world — if you think this is just about Xi’s difficulties with the equally erratic U.S. President Donald Trump, you haven’t been paying attention at all — just about anything is possible.

And by this point, whatever is about to befall Canada, we should admit out loud that we were warned. It’s been at least a decade since U.S. intelligence officials and Barack Obama’s White House first told us, in the clearest language possible, that Huawei was bad news. But we thought we were clever. And around Trudeau’s cabinet table they still think they’re clever, ignoring the warnings of Canada’s intelligence agencies, and the intelligence agencies of our allies and kicking the can down the road on whether to bar Huawei from Canada’s fifth-generation internet evolution.

CPP adds $17B to assets now worth more than $409B despite pandemic

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board president Mark Machin said the national pension plan is secure despite the global economic disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

The Canada Pension Plan earned a return of 3.1 per cent after expenses during the financial year ended March 31, the board that manages the fund’s money reported Tuesday.

Net assets for Canada’s national pension plan totalled $409.6 billion as of the end of March, up from $392 billion at the end of the previous financial year.

The $17.6-billion year-over-year increase included $12.1 billion in net income from its investments. The other $5.5 billion came from contributions of more than 20 million Canadian workers covered by the plan.

A Black Swan With Teeth

For years, I have been warning that during the age of permanent stimulus (which began in earnest with the Federal Reserve’s reaction to the dotcom crash of 2000), each successive economic contraction would have to be met with ever larger, increasingly ineffective, doses of monetary and fiscal stimulus to keep the economy from spiraling into depression. I have also said that the enormity of the asset price gains over the last 10 years had increased the danger because reflating the bloated stock, real estate, and public and private debt markets would bring on doses of stimulus that could prove lethal for the economy. But even though I expected that the next financial crisis would be catastrophic, I thought that it would come into the world in the usual way, as a credit crisis triggered by over-leverage. But the Coronavirus ripped up those stage notes, and instead ushered in a threat that is faster and deeper than I imagined, and I imagined a lot. It’s a perfect storm, a black swan with teeth.

Even in my most pessimistic assessments, I did not expect that so many seemingly distant sectors of the economy would simultaneously evaporate, almost overnight, or that government deficits would expand to nearly $4 trillion in the first wave of the crisis, or that the Federal Reserve would so suddenly launch its largest-ever experiment in quantitative easing, (with almost none of the forward guidance they have used to telegraph lesser moves), which would expand its balance sheet by more than $3 trillion in a matter of just a few months. Nor did I expect that at its outset the Fed’s new buying plan would include, for the first time, corporate bonds and high yield debt ETFs. (I thought those expansions would come eventually, not immediately.)

To make matters even worse, the crisis has struck in the midst of a presidential election year, which guarantees that every policy decision has been made through a political prism. Democrats are seizing on the crisis to paint the Trump Administration as incompetent, ineffective and uncaring, often twisting themselves into knots to do so. (Trump has done himself no favors by using his daily briefings to showcase his inconsistent policy positions, combative political style, and his tenuous grasp of medical concepts.) So, in contrast to prior national crises that had tended to pull the country together (think 9/11), this event is tearing us apart.

Hertz Files For Bankruptcy, Stunning US Automakers As Leaders Scramble For Solutions

Car rental companies feel the symptoms of the coronavirus. GETTY

Late last night, Hertz (NYSE: HTZ) filed for bankruptcy. The restructuring has sent shockwaves through the US auto industry, according to CNN. What’s driving the decision? Reduced air travel. The TSA reports that domestic flights are down 94%. As a result of this massive shrinkage, car rental rivals Avis Budget Group (NASDAQ: CAR) and privately-owned Enterprise are also hurting. Last year, all US rental car companies bought nearly 2 million automobiles — or about 10% of the US auto industry production. Now, major auto manufacturers like Ford (NYSE:F), GM (NYSE: GM) and Fiat Chrysler (NYSE: FCAU) are seeing a vast aspect of their annual sales threatened. What are the implications for Detroit — and the US economy as a whole — as the coronavirus finds more corporate victims?

At the start of the year, Hertz had 568,000 vehicles parked at 12,400 locations across the globe. The company’s overall revenues in 2019? $9.8 Billion. But carrying cars on a balance sheet is a pricey proposition: in March of this year the company was servicing nearly $19 billion in debt- with only (only?) $1 billion in cash available, according to CNN reports. But the bankruptcy filing has broader implications than just Hertz’s balance sheet.

600 Physicians Say Lockdowns Are A ‘Mass Casualty Incident’

(Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images) DENVER POST VIA GETTY IMAGES

More than 600 of the nation’s physicians sent a letter to President Trump this week calling the coronavirus shutdowns a “mass casualty incident” with “exponentially growing negative health consequences” to millions of non COVID patients.

“The downstream health effects…are being massively under-estimated and under-reported. This is an order of magnitude error,” according to the letter initiated by Simone Gold, M.D., an emergency medicine specialist in Los Angeles.

“Suicide hotline phone calls have increased 600%,” the letter said. Other silent casualties: “150,000 Americans per month who would have had new cancer detected through routine screening.”

From missed cancer diagnoses to untreated heart attacks and strokes to increased risks of suicides, “We are alarmed at what appears to be a lack of consideration for the future health of our patients.”

You Would Have Never Believed It

And you’ll never see it coming.

A reminder for those making predictions.

You would have never believed it if, in the mid-1980s, someone told you that in the next two decades the Soviet Union would collapse, Japan’s economy would stagnate for 20 years, China would become a superpower, and North Dakota would be ground zero for global energy growth.

You would have never believed it if, in 1930, someone told you there would be a surge in the birthrate from 1945 to 1965, creating a massive generation that would have all kinds of impacts on the economy and society.

You would have never believed it if, in 2004, someone told you a website run by a 19-year-old college dropout on which you look at pictures of your friends would be worth nearly a quarter-trillion dollars in less than a decade. (Nice job, Facebook.)

Whitney: In The Race For Immunity, Sweden Leads The Pack

Authored by Mike Whitney via The Unz Review,

In a pandemic, there is no substitute for immunity, because immunity provides the best protection against reinfection. That’s why Sweden set its sights on immunity from the very beginning. They crafted a policy that was designed to protect the old and vulnerable, prevent the public health system from being overwhelmed, and, most important, allow younger, low-risk people to interact freely so they’d contract the virus and develop the antibodies they’d need to fight future infections. That was the plan and it worked like a charm. Now Sweden is just weeks away from achieving herd immunity (which means that future outbreaks will not be nearly as severe) while the lockdown nations– that are just now easing restrictions– face an excruciating uphill slog that may or may not succeed. Bottom line: Sweden analyzed the problem, figured out what to do, and did it. That’s why they are closing in on the finish line while most of the lockdown states are still stuck at Square 1.

Opinion: We are infectious disease experts. It's time to lift the COVID-19 lockdowns

It is clear that the past two months have shown that with great sacrifices, community transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus could slow down. And it is that in Canada, we can rightly say that we were able to “flatten the curve” to avoid a scenario in northern Italy or New York City.

However, it needs to be noted that we are now facing unintended consequences as well as delays in healthcare for non-COVID-19 patients, educational impacts, the impending pandemic of mental health issues, and massive economic repercussions. Furthermore, widespread restrictions certainly cannot be maintained until an effective and safe vaccine is widely available, which may not occur for years, if at all. And to be honest, the virus is unlikely to disappear from Canada or the world any time soon.

In the meantime it could be said that the blockade in some part fulfilled its objectives but at the same time it did not.

Advantages and disadvantages

John Robson: We can't eradicate COVID, and we'd bankrupt ourselves trying

We certainly knew in a moment. We were trying to contain and then eradicate SARS-CoV-2 because we thought it was as deadly as it was contagious, including “flattening the curve” to protect the health system from its initial virulent onset. Still, it has been stated that there is no point in continuing to act this way once we realize that it is quite contagious but not as deadly as originally feared.

Now, in view of this situation, it is appropriate to question, Would we spend half of GDP to eliminate the last vestige of COVID-19? Perhaps, if we thought that the alternative was to see one in 20 of us die, the collapse of vital services, etc. We could also tolerate neglecting Parliament, mass unemployment, and the prime minister who distributes half a trillion dollars a day in unexamined spending by telling bureaucrats to ignore fraud despite a deficit likely to top $ 300 billion and push loans above total income.

No longer makes sense

Soaring household debt leaves Liberals with 'extremely complicated' task of winding down COVID-19 support

Undoubtedly, rising household debt will further increase pressure on the Canadian economy in the coming months, leading to the liberal government grappling with the difficult question of how and when to undo its massive support programs.

Likewise, it is worth mentioning that Canada has maintained for years some of the highest levels of household debt among developed nations, something in focus in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this way, Justin Trudeau must begin the “extremely difficult” job of adjusting and reducing his costly assistance programs to avoid a wave of defaults after those supports are removed, according to CIBC economist Benjamin Tal.

Certainly, a skillful hand on the part of Ottawa will be needed, in which programs may need to be expanded, reduced, or adapted to meet the individual needs of workers.

High indebtedness for households

Inflation falls below zero in Canada for first time since 2009

Canadian inflation was negative for the first time since the 2009 recession after the coronavirus blockade that has clearly slowed down the world economy.

As is well known, inflation is an economic process caused by the imbalance between production and demand; It causes a continued rise in the prices of most products and services, and a loss of the value of money to be able to purchase or use them.

That said, it is understood that consumer prices fell 0.2 percent in April from the same month the year before, according to a Statistics Canada report from Ottawa. Likewise, that’s less than an annual rate of 0.9 percent in March and 2.2 percent in February.

Coronavirus impact

Rex Murphy – Was it code? The PM's bizarre announcement on the carbon tax hike

It is no secret to anyone that Canada has been more or less closed for more than two months. And is that almost no part of the business or industry has been saved.

Likewise, oil prices were already at the bottom due to the forced excess of Russia and Saudi Arabia, the cheapest gasoline ever since Noah left the Ark, and started the first motorboat. So, from the point of view of revenue collection, the moment was certainly inactive. Still, with so many people out of work and on tight personal budgets, more than a million jobs went missing but are still hired to pay, and to pay the bills, it was not the time to raise a tax.

Likewise, it is necessary to remember that there were still some “essential services” — agriculture and road transport, to name the two most obvious — that would require energy, fuels, to provide the rest of the needs such as food. The government, in any other way, was throwing billions of dollars out the cabin door, but still wanted to ping Canadians with the global warming tax.

More fog than daylight

Silver Joins Gold at the Party

Silver has finally joined gold at the party.

In the last week, the price of the white metal has moved up from $15.51 to $17.35. (as I type this on Tuesday morning May 19) That’s an 11.9% increase.

With the jump in the price of silver, the silver-gold ratio has dropped from over 113–1 earlier this month to 101–1 today.

In early May, we reported that silver hasn’t been this undervalued when priced in gold in over 5,000 years of human history. Although the silver-gold ratio has close, the while metal remains historically inexpensive compared to gold. We still effectively have silver on sale.

The US dollar: the final act

The unthinkable is becoming ever more likely. The end of US dollar dominance and the beginning of some new form of global monetary system will soon be upon us. It was bound to happen at some point.

The story of reserve currencies is long and stretches far back into ancient times. But as modern history shows, the average lifespan of reserve assets is just around 100 years. (Cases in point, the French Livre and the Dutch Guilder.) The end is always caused by over spending on wars, over consumption, excessive debt and easy credit. Sound familiar? I was asked about this in an interview last summer and my response was that, while it is inevitable, the decline of the US dollar was still many years away. Of course, that was before the COVID-19 pandemic and the US fiscal and monetary response to the crisis it created.

I doubt we will emerge from this calamity and its prolonged economic impact with the current system intact. Why? I’ll try to put it simply and focus only on the important, big picture dynamics.

Horowitz: One chart exposes the lie behind universal lockdowns

Futuristic coronavirus cells abstract background with glowing low polygonal virus cells and text on dark blue background. Immunology, virology, epidemiology concept. Vector illustration. inkoly | Getty Images

What is the true infection fatality rate of COVID-19, broken down by age and health status? This is a simple question for which the CDC should have a clear answer by now, accompanied by a readable chart — a chart showing everyone’s demographic risk assessment so that we can better target our infection mitigation efforts. Yet it’s the one thing our government hasn’t done. Wonder why?

Take a look at this chart (which I translated into English using Google Translate) prepared by the Economisch Statistische Berichten (ESB), a Dutch economics magazine, quantifying the infection fatality rate for the Dutch population based on age bracket. The data were calculated from an antibody test of 4,000 blood donors conducted by Dutch blood bank Sanquin to see how many have been infected for the purpose of donating blood plasma to those currently suffering from the virus. The data were presented to the Dutch House of Representatives in mid-April by the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM).

Why Virtual Reality is About to Change the World

Jazilykenneth/Pixabay

Virtual reality poses to be one of the foremost future technologies. While it may still seem like a niche product today, as it comes into prominence in the technology space, more and more developers will tackle integrating VR into their apps and devices.

VR is currently nearing the cusp of global adoption. It’s been on an upward climb for viability over the last decade and it’s finally reaching the point that highly practical — and profitable — applications are arising.

From healthcare to technology to education, virtual reality will have a lasting impact on how life is done.

The potential for VR

Economic Contraction in Canada Seen Five Times Worse Than 2009

TORONTO, ON - MAY 14: Kensington Market area streets now have signs closing off traffic to the general public as well as reminding people to share the space by physical distancing. COVID-19. CORONAPD  Toronto Star/Rick Madonik        (Rick Madonik/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

Economists are slashing forecasts for Canadian output again as the country haltingly reopens with large parts of the economy still shut down.

Canada’s economy will shrink by 42% annualized in the three months through June 30 from the prior quarter, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists. The magnitude is staggering, with the expected decline almost five times the largest quarterly contraction during the 2008–09 financial crisis.

“We know March was terrible and April is going to be even worse so the starting point is horrendous for the second quarter,” BMO Chief Economist Doug Porter said by phone.

BMO has one of the more bearish forecasts with 2Q GDP down 44%. However, the bank expects a substantial rebound in the third quarter.

Staggering April Budget Deficit Just the Tip of the Iceberg

The April federal budget deficit came in at a staggering $738 billion as government coronavirus stimulus began flowing through the pipelines and revenue dipped due to the government lockdown.

Analysts expected a massive deficit in April, but it’s still a staggering number. To put it into perspective, the previous record for a single month was $235 billion and that was just in February of this year.

Including April’s shortfall, the budget deficit for fiscal 2020 stands just under $1.5 trillion with five months still left to go.

The highest deficit on record was $1.413 trillion in 2009. In fact, the federal government has only run deficits over $1 trillion in four fiscal years, all during the Great Recession. The fifth trillion-dollar deficit was coming down the pike in fiscal 2020, despite what Trump kept calling “the greatest economy in the history of America.”

There Is No Evidence Lockdowns Saved Lives. It Is Indisputable They Caused Great Harm

The US has a little more than 4% of the world population. Yet, throughout the end of April and through mid-May, the US claimed to have about a third of the reported coronavirus cases and a quarter to a third of reported death worldwide. What accounts for these amazing numbers?

By any measure, the US has a much better healthcare system than the Philippines (PI). The country has about a third of the US population, at 106.7 million. Just to pick a date, on May 12, 2020 the PI reported 11,086 cases and 726 deaths, according to Worldometer. This represents 213 cases per million residents, and 7 per million deaths. The US reported 4,187 cases per million, and 247 deaths per million, 20 and 30 times higher than the PI. The PI also had variable lockdowns, as did the US, with Manila reportedly facing the strictest measures, similar to some areas in the US.

One obvious difference in numbers is the level of testing. The US surely carried out testing more assiduously than did the PI. The same site claimed the US carried out 29 thousand tests per million, with only 1,600 per million in the PI. But with lower deaths, a country needs fewer tests.

Without question, the media, including non-American media, focused on the US. And perhaps the US was quicker to ascribe deaths to coronavirus. Who knows what the PI policy was for ascribing deaths. The weather in the PI, too, was much better — that is, hotter and sunnier — than in the areas of the US with the largest deaths, New York, Chicago, and Detroit metropolitan areas, which all had lousy weather. A late spring, with cool temperatures and a lot of rain.

Mental Health Care Company COMPASS Pathways Concludes Successful Series B Investment Round

$80m Raised Will Further the Development of Psilocybin Therapy

LONDON, April 27, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — COMPASS Pathways, a mental health care company, announced today that it has completed a successful $80m Series B investment round. This funding will expand upon COMPASS’s lead programme in psilocybin therapy for treatment-resistant depression, supporting research into additional indications for psilocybin therapy, advancing the company’s preclinical pipeline, developing digital technologies, and establishing new academic and clinical research partnerships.

The Series B funding comes from existing investors, such as ATAI Life Sciences; and new investors, including the McQuade Center for Strategic Research and Development, LLC (a member of the global Otsuka family of pharmaceutical companies), Founders Fund, Able Partners, Camden Partners Nexus, Perceptive Advisors, Skyviews Life Science, and Soleus Capital. The fundraising effort for COMPASS was led by Lars Wilde, President, Chief Business Officer and Co-founder of COMPASS Pathways.

Gold tests first resistance; silver and platinum quiet

Gold has been moving up the last couple of days and has reached the first resistance of $1,730 in the June futures. The pattern looks ready to break out out to the upside and may be reversing the recent pressure it has be under. Remember, gold has been consolidating with a lean to the downside since early April but held support.

If gold can break through the $1,730 level in the June futures, the next target is $1,775. The fact that gold has made higher lows for the last week adds momentum to a possible breakout. We remain long and will stay there until the pattern is violated to the downside.

Silver and platinum remain in almost identical patterns, with both looking like they are getting ready to make big moves. Based on our positions, we assume these moves to be higher. However, the pattern itself is based on confusion, which suggests that silver and platinum can go either way. Levels to watch include: silver, $15-$16, July futures; and platinum, $750-$850, July futures.

Diane Francis: End the lockdown immediately — but protect the vulnerable

Diane Francis: Countries should end the lockdowns for those who are less at risk from this disease. Peter J. Thompson/National Post files

For many, it is necessary to end the closure immediately, even so, those who are the most vulnerable must continue to be protected. Certainly, a COVID-19 vaccine is at least within a year, but the current treatment for the disease, the blockade, is considered to be ended immediately.

That being the case, the facts dictate that the best course of action would be to reopen the economy while continuing to isolate people over 65 and people with underlying health problems. And it is clear that the fact of continuing to stop the entire economy until there is a vaccine will cause a financial collapse worse than the recession of 2008–09, which must be remembered that it took billions of dollars and five years to “heal”.

Likewise, older people who need to work or need financial help should receive assistance, so that the rest of society does not have to be. Seniors should be prepared, whenever possible, to work from home if they can. Older people who need assistance in staying isolated, in terms of food preparation and other care, should have these resources. In addition, he believes that nursing homes should be renovated to reduce the spread of disease.

Time to activate the economy

Conrad Black: Fear of COVID-19 is overblown, it's time to get the economy moving again

Certainly, the fear of COVID-19 is exaggerated, it is time for the economy to move again, it needs to be activated. Likewise, it is possible to be demoralized by the enthusiasm that an excessive number of Canadians seem to have to continue with the closure of the coronavirus.

Canada recorded 4,404 coronavirus deaths as of Thursday night; About 80 percent of them are among 20 percent of people over the age of 60, and generally with additional health problems that have compromised their immune systems. Therefore, you have discovered from the data that has come in the last two months, and especially from the more than eight million tests in the United States, that we have a significant problem for a fifth of people and a minimal problem for the great majority. In Canada, this means that among people over 65 there has been approximately one death for every 2,200 people, or between 22 and 1 percent, which is a pretty good probability for the elderly. And since 20 percent of deaths occur among 80 percent of the population under the age of 65, the chances of people in that age group being fatally affected by this pandemic are approximately one in nearly 40,000.

Situation to be stopped

Canadian travel firm FlightHub seeks creditor protection

FlightHub booked $3 billion worth of vacation packages last year, serving five million customers, the company says. (Michael Probst/The Associated Press)

COVID-19 pandemic has virtually wiped out demand for recreational travel

Montreal-based travel firm FlightHub is seeking protection from its creditors amid the COVID-19 pandemic that has wiped out demand for travel.

The company operates two main brands, FlightHub in Canada and JustFly in the U.S.

Founded in Montreal in 2012, the company has grown to become a major player in the travel industry, selling more than $3 billion worth of vacation packages to five million customers last year.  The company works with more than 200 airlines, and makes money by getting a cut of every ticket sale the airlines get from their booking platform.

New Trudeau law could jail parents who oppose gender conversion

It is cruel to use law to force confused, dysphoric children and their parents to embrace a life of permanent hormone therapy, surgery and disillusion.

Under the guise of prohibiting “conversion therapy,” Bill C-8 would make it a criminal offence for parents to help their own gender-confused children find peace in accepting their biological gender. The Liberal government’s proposed legislation, introduced as a First Reading on March 9, defines “conversion therapy” as “a practice, treatment or service designed to change a person’s sexual orientation to heterosexual or gender identity to cisgender, or to repress or reduce non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behaviour.”

This proposed House of Commons legislation has the same major flaws that the Senate’s Bill S-202 had, as I argued in 2019. Under C-8, parents could spend up to five years in jail for trying to help their son accept himself as a boy, or for helping their daughter to accept herself as a girl. Bill C-8 also would impose prison terms up to five years for doctors, counsellors, psychiatrists, psychologists and other paid professionals whose treatment for gender confusion departs from politically correct orthodoxy. Parents would be punished if they do anything other than encourage a confused child to “transition” to the opposite gender. Transitioning is an extreme form of intervention that includes taking puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and undergoing permanent surgical sterilization, including the removal of healthy organs such as breasts and testicles.

Was Trudeau a Disaster for Canada? Yep.

CP

Three subsequent important prime ministers — Brian Mulroney, Jean Chretien and Stephen Harper — invested their energies cleaning up the wreckage left by Pierre Trudeau. Finally, nobody speculates any more about Canada defaulting on its debt, or splitting apart, or being isolated from all its major allies.

This is the full text of David Frum’s opening statement at a debate over the late prime minister’s legacy hosted by the MacDonald-Laurier Institute. Arguing for Trudeau was Lawrence Martin. The debate, moderated by Michael Bliss, was held Tuesday Sept. 27, 2011 at the Museum of Civilization in Ottawa.

Under the strict rules of debate, my opponent can win if he proves that Trudeau was something less than a disaster for Canada: a misfortune or even merely a disappointment. I hope you will hold him — and Trudeau — to a higher standard. I hope you will require him to prove that Pierre Trudeau was affirmatively a good thing for Canada, actually a successful prime minister.

If so, he cannot possibly win.

Rex Murphy: Only the Greens and separatists could find 'opportunity' in a pandemic

Incredible but true, only the Greens and the separatists found ‘opportunity’ in a pandemic. And it is that on Wednesday, Elizabeth May, parliamentary leader of the Green Party, declared that “oil is dead” and argued that “The pandemic, in a very real way, as horrific as this is at many, many levels, gives us an opportunity to stop and think about how we get this economy back on its feet.”. It has been said that May never punishes China, Russia, or Qatar. When he said, “Oil is dead,” it was an Exocet verbally directed directly at Alberta and its planet-destroying government. “Jason Kenney, your province is over,” is how I paraphrase it.

During a global pandemic that has seen hundreds of miles of deaths, hundreds of miles of mourning, ruined ruins, and near-universal anxiety, it’s really difficult to craft a sentence in which COVID-19 swims in the same lexical waters as “opportunity.”

Undoubted insensitivity

The Next Financial Crisis: A Global Debt Bomb is Being Primed to Go Off

In fact, central bankers and governments around the world are trying to stop the economic disaster that has resulted from the blockades caused by the Coronavirus outbreak, which to date has resulted in one of the most prolific debt expansions in this world. have been seen.

Several countries have previously been seen engaging in such money expansions in the past, especially when countries are spinning down the drain, on the brink of economic ruin, however, never before has everyone been observed participating in a party. The massive fiat money printing around the world in such a voracious way.

Without a doubt, while this may be the right course of action to help stop the spread of COVID-19, it will have dire consequences along the way in the form of wealth destruction on a monstrous scale, for those who do not prepare accordingly and start protecting yourself from the consequences that lie ahead.

Accumulated debts

Rex Murphy: COVID-19 and our new Government at the Bottom of the Cottage Doorsteps

What are news, COVID-19 and the new government at the foot of the cabin doors. Certainly, the melody line that stretches today is the abrupt abandonment of the parliamentary government, the defining institution of the Canadian Confederation, sometime in the spring months of 2020.

Likewise, all that ceremony and history, everything is gone, as well as the sergeant-at-arms, the speech from the throne, the guardian of his rights and privileges. The commons itself, a chamber rich in memories, where the souls of the prime ministers and the great parliamentarians of the past still remain.

Meanwhile, it has been expressed that we currently have its modern replacement, a pure dream of a government, an unopposed one, free to spend the money wherever it wants, in whatever amount it chooses, whom it favors. All executed during what is called a “morning briefing”. Which is that their leader appears, alone, making announcements of enormous amounts of money to be fired in all directions, to an attentive and obedient press gallery.

Current policies

GUNTER: There is no magical energy transformation for Canada

Photograph taken on Tuesday September 27, 2016 near Strathroy, Ontario west of London. Mike Hensen / Mike Hensen/The London Free Pres

There are two things we can say about “renewable” energy: It seldom produces more energy than it takes to capture and release its energy — meaning many renewable projects have energy deficits. And renewables almost always cost more tax dollars than they bring in; meaning budget deficits.

Ontario’s 10-year “green” energy experiment under the former Liberal provincial government proved that. At least $50 billion in added debt, doubled electricity bills and tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs lost to the States where energy inputs weren’t so pricey.

How Many Lives Will Politicians Sacrifice in the Name of Fighting COVID-19?

During the current coronavirus lockdown, I’d pay good money to see just one public official be asked:

“How many lives are you willing to sacrifice to prevent one coronavirus death?”

Thomas Sowell has repeatedly written that in a world of scarcity there are no solutions, only tradeoffs. The lockdown debate has thus far focused on that tradeoff as one between saving lives versus a temporary blip in the economy.

As Tom Woods wrote recently, “We heard it from Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York, and plenty of people since then: if we save even one life with all these draconian measures, it will have been worthwhile.”

But there’s so much more to it than that. The lockdown itself is costing lives, perhaps more so than the virus itself.

Opponents of the lockdowns do themselves a disservice in focusing almost exclusively on the importance of “reopening the economy,” as if financial self-interest were the only reason to lift stay-at-home orders and risk an acceleration of COVID-19 spread and deaths.

Michael Moore Acknowledges: There Are No Alternatives to Energy Reality

By attacking green energy, Michael Moore turned into the new Orange Man. In Planet of the Humans, a documentary he sponsored and is actively marketing, well-meaning environmental activists are told that the road to environmental hell is paved with green investment funds and lined with wind turbines, solar panels, and biomass-burning power plants.

Far from being led to the Sustainable Land, they have been deceived by the “profits” of the Green religion who sold their souls to petro-monarchies, the logging industry, biofuel manufacturers and cynical crony capitalists. Even the people who manufacture, build, sell, install and operate solar panels and wind turbines show little faith in the impractical, unaffordable, unreliable and non-scalable technologies they promote for a living. In the end, our only road to salvation is a return to the low human numbers and widespread poverty that existed before humanity got addicted to fossil fuels.

While Planet of the Humans doesn’t say anything that long-time critics of alternative energy haven’t discussed in more detail, it lifts the green curtain and provides much new and very effective footage of the waste, lies and destruction that prop up the sets on the stage. Among the waste are the bankrupt and collapsed infrastructure of many wind and solar power projects.