If history repeats itself, gold prices headed to $4,000 in three years - Frank Holmes

Gold prices have seen a positive correlation to the expansion of the Federal Reserve’s assets, and as the Fed embarks on the largest stimulus program in its history, the yellow metal is set rally in the same fashion as in the aftermath of the last recession, said Frank Holmes, CEO of U.S. Global Investors.

“In the next three years, if we look back, if [history] repeats itself, from 2008, 2009 to 2011, that three year run saw gold go from a $750 — $800 range up to $1,900. If we forecast that because we have the same expansion of the balance sheet of the Fed then it would project, if cycles are exactly the same, gold could go to $4,000,” Holmes said.

'Most violent' bull market is here: Gold looking at $5K, silver at $50 in just 3 years - Chancery Asset Management

(Kitco News) The gold and silver bull market is in its early stages, and it is already looking to be one of the most volatile bull runs, according to Chancery Asset Management founder Thomas Puppendahl.

The COVID-19 outbreak was just “one snowflake that let the avalanche come down,” Puppendahl told Kitco News on the sidelines of the Mines and Money Online Connect virtual conference on Thursday.

The ingredients are all there for both gold and silver to begin an epic rise, and Puppendahl is not ruling out seeing gold at $5,000 an ounce and silver at $50 an ounce in just three years.

“We are still in the early stage of this next bull market, which is probably going to be the most violent and in percentage terms biggest bull market since it began in 1999–2000,” he said. “Medium term, I would expect $3,000-$5,000 gold in the next three years … Silver could go from $18 to $50 within the next three years.”

On Behalf Of Environmentalists, I Apologize For The Climate Scare

THE AUTHOR IN MARANHÃO, BRAZIL, 1995

On behalf of environmentalists everywhere, I would like to formally apologize for the climate scare we created over the last 30 years. Climate change is happening. It’s just not the end of the world. It’s not even our most serious environmental problem.

I may seem like a strange person to be saying all of this. I have been a climate activist for 20 years and an environmentalist for 30.

But as an energy expert asked by Congress to provide objective expert testimony, and invited by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to serve as Expert Reviewer of its next Assessment Report, I feel an obligation to apologize for how badly we environmentalists have misled the public.

Here are some facts few people know:

A Message from the CEO: From Reflecting to Projecting

By Peter Grosskopf

On the eve of Sprott’s planned listing on the NYSE, I thought it appropriate to take stock of our history and the decade of my tenure as Chief Executive Officer of the firm.

The Early Days

Eric Sprott founded our business in 1981. Already an accomplished accountant and stock-picking analyst at Merrill Lynch and other Canadian firms, he saw the opportunity to specialize in growth stocks. Eric’s style was always numbers-driven and hard-hitting. His system was based on un-covering value (in his words “stealing” it, before there were other believers) in the form of an equity proposition that offered high-test upside with limited downside.

The firm rapidly built a reputation for success on the investing side, for managed client accounts as well as for the firm’s capital, and as an investment dealer to other institutions. I joined Sprott in 1993 before founding my own similar business with outside partners. During my short initial time as Eric’s partner, I gleaned an understanding that success required a fierce determination to assume a position of leadership, being first to act to get the best sizing and pricing for a position, acting as a contrarian, and to win for clients.

Rex Murphy: These are strange and disturbing times

A protester holds a gun during a dispute with another armed man that resolved with no shots fired, in the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest area in Seattle on June 26. LINDSEY WASSON/REUTERS

It is no secret to anyone that in today’s world many strange things are presented, and not a few disturbing ones. An example of this could be the CHAZistan phenomenon, the process by which six blocks of downtown Seattle were occupied by protesters. And it is that a group of people, some under the banners of Black Lives Matter and Antifa, entered the heart of a modern city and simply proclaimed that it was theirs.

In a way, it could be said that there was a “conference of the parties”, to adopt the nomenclature of the largest talk to reach an agreement or reach a common understanding. It was a purely one-sided event. This being so, it has been expressed that various factions simply snapped their fingers, so to speak, made their claim, armed their fences, and raised their guards. And with that, it would be enough to be theirs.

Clearly, there are a lot of people living in these six crowded blocks, and others going to work there. Indeed, it is notorious that for all intents and purposes they have been stripped of their own citizenship, which is, or used to be, before this new madness took hold, a major problem. They have been stripped of their security since the police are not allowed to enter. Likewise, their city, state, and national government have effectively abandoned them.

Folly present

A Never-Ending Story of Bailouts, Moral Hazard, and Low Economic Growth

The recent economic downturn has created the environment for a new round of bailouts by the government and the Fed. Last time they did this they told us it would be the last one, but anyone who knows our history knew that was not going to stand. Now we are told again that this is an exceptional situation and we must bail out businesses in trouble so that the economy can restart again as quickly as possible. But this is the same argument the government has always made when pushing for a bailout. What is more, every time the government has bailed out businesses, they have promised us that this will not create moral hazard.

Moral hazard here refers to the ability to take risk without fear of suffering the consequences. As I show below, businesses profit by making bad short-term decisions, and when these bad decisions bring them to the brink of bankruptcy, they are bailed out by taxpayers. So, the owners of these firms and their CEOs benefit from the upside, and taxpayers foot the bill on the downside. In what follows, I review the history of bailouts in the US and argue that we must consider bringing an end to bailouts if we want to have the real and sustainable economic growth we desperately need.

You Want To Talk Privilege? Ok, Let's Talk Privilege...

After the 9/11 terror attacks, when our privacies were permanently revoked, and we entered into “a war which would never end in our lifetimes”, Bush II proclaimed “They hate us because of our freedoms”.

Some critics thought that was an almost nonsensical statement to make, while the credulous took it at face value. It framed whoever perpetrated the attacks as some inhuman “other” that despised happiness itself. It was unthinkable anybody could have an actual foreign-policy derived reason for doing it, and anybody who suggested as much was usually hounded out of the public eye.

However I always thought that utterance did have a kernel of truth to it. If you looked at the United States as a global empire, and that the freedoms “they” hated were not actually the ones to assemble, or worship or to vote, as Bush intimated, but rather the ones where America acted unilaterally in its own interest observing American Exceptionalism as a type of infallible axiom, then Bush would have been closer to the substance of the matter.

The Scheme to Finance Reckless-Abandon Government Spending: “Modern Monetary Theory” vs. “Pegging”

The intractable Great Depression some 85 years ago led to the intellectual thought that perhaps it’s possible for a government to “policy” its way out of a deep economic hole. The question is, can economic growth be created out of thin air by passing a resolution or law, or by printing paper? This is basically all that governments have to work with.

And when John Maynard Keynes came along with his General Theory in the middle of the Great Depression, he suggested ideas that governments would begin to implement in post-World War II economic recessions. Now those ideas are leaping into the next phase, when government spending takes place with reckless abandon causing government deficits to be automatically financed by the central bank.

The general theme is that the government obtains cash via selling its debt (Treasury securities) and in turn spends the cash on public or private goods or outright gifting it to individuals — or, in a new variation of the theme, providing non-recourse corporate loans, as was done with Trump’s PPP. But to gift and hope for spending — which in turn generates more income — requires raising cash first, and that presents the question of how that will take place.

Gabelli's Bryan; mining stocks lag gold based on history, leaving potential upside

(Kitco News) — Equities of gold-mining companies still appear undervalued based on a historical comparison of where they were trading relative to the price of gold during the last bull-market cycle, said Caesar Bryan, portfolio manager of the Gabelli Gold Fund (symbol GOLDX for AAA shares and GLDIX for institutional class of shares).

Meanwhile, gold itself is likely to hit fresh record highs in the aftermath of massive monetary accommodation and fiscal stimulus in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, he told Kitco News in an interview this week. And as gold prices climb, that means more revenue for producers.

Gold and mining stocks alike fell sharply in mid-March when investors were selling a broad array of assets to generate liquidity when the broader stock market went into a free fall. However, spot gold rebounded from mid-March lows near $1,450 an ounce to a seven-high year near $1,780 on Wednesday.

But while gold-mining stocks have also risen, Bryan commented that “they really haven’t done anything yet” compared to the last bull-market cycle, thus leaving potential for further upside in share prices.

Why Gold, and Why Now

For thousands of years gold is the ultimate store of value. Currently, gold is undervalued as there are massive bubbles in asset markets and central banks continue to print money, which supports these bubbles. This is an unsustainable situation; and when the bubbles burst the gold price will rise.

Gold is the ultimate store of value, as it’s the only globally accepted financial asset without counterparty risk, and it has preserved its purchasing power throughout history. In the long-term, the stability of gold’s value is unparalleled.

Because gold is scarce and immutable, it has been used as money for thousands of years. Gold’s first use was for adornments — jewelry, regalia, and prestige goods. As early as the 5th millennium BC gold beads of different sizes and purities were manufactured through serial production in Varna, Bulgaria. The semi-finished products were worn in a necklace, and possibly traded.

A COVID-19 stimulus program could kick start the battery materials market within the year

With the electric vehicle sector established in China, Europe looks poised to see the same due to a program designed to kick-start the automotive industry after COVID-19 disruptions.

The COO of Pilbara Minerals, Dale Henderson, spoke to Kitco on Wednesday.

Pilbara Minerals is an Australian lithium-tantalum producer. The company is developing its Pilgangoora Lithium-Tantalum Project, which the company said will turn Pilbara into one of the biggest lithium raw materials producers in the world.

The lithium market was struggling before COVID-19. The pandemic made the situation worse. In January Galaxy Resources cut production 60% due to weak market conditions. Lithium giant Orocobre reported a price per tonne for lithium being down 24%.

A collapsing dollar and China’s monetary strategy

This article describes how China can escape the fate of a dollar collapse by tying the yuan to gold. There is little doubt she has access to sufficient gold. Currently, her interest is to preserve the dollar, not destroy it, because it is the principal means of Chinese foreign interests being secured .

Furthermore, a return to sound money requires China to reverse its interventionism under Xi, returning to Deng Xiaoping’s original vision. Sound money can only last if the relationship between the state and the wider economy is properly addressed.

Of all the major economies, China’s is best placed to implement a sound money solution. At the moment it seems unlikely the necessary reforms will be forthcoming; but a general collapse of the global fiat currency regime presents the opportunity for reassessment and change.

Introduction

President Putin signs law on information system for monitoring trade in precious metals

MOSCOW, June 23 (RAPSI) — Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has signed a law envisaging the development of an integrated management information system in the sphere of control over the trade in precious metals, gems, and respective wares.

The document amending the law on precious metals and gemstones currently in force is published on the official internet portal of legal information.

The new system will allow following the movement of precious metals, gems, and respective wares at all stages of their turnover; it is to be operated by the Finance Ministry.

Sweden’s Covid Expert Says ‘World Went Mad’ With Lockdowns

The man behind Sweden’s controversial Covid-19 strategy has characterized lockdowns imposed across much of the globe as a form of “madness” that flies in the face of what is known about handling viral outbreaks.

Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s state epidemiologist, said he advised against such restrictions on movement because of the detrimental side effects they often entail.

“It was as if the world had gone mad, and everything we had discussed was forgotten,” Tegnell said in a podcast with Swedish Radio on Wednesday. “The cases became too many and the political pressure got too strong. And then Sweden stood there rather alone.”

This gold rally could take prices as high as $3,000 an ounce - Edison

(Kitco News) With the Federal Reserve’s response to the COVID-19 crisis, gold prices are likely to near $1,900 with the potential to go up as high as $3,000 an ounce, according to Edison’s latest gold report.

This outlook is based on the projections that the coronavirus crisis is a protracted one and the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet either stabilizes or continues to increase, Edison’s Investment Research director Charles Gibson said.

“With the total U.S. monetary base now at US$5.1tn (and given the close historical correlation between the two), the gold price could very reasonably be expected to rise to US$1,892/oz and potentially as high as US$3,000/oz,” Gibson wrote in the investment research company’s gold report.

Supporting gold at the moment is a combination of factors, including money printing, aggressive bond buying, COVID-19 lockdowns and economic crisis.

The report makes a comparison between the current negative interest rates in the U.S. to similar volatility in interest rates between September 1979 and October 1980, the time to which Edison refers to as gold’s “first great bull run in the period of flat money”.

Conrad Black: Two neighbours, not so much alike

People raise their fists in Atlanta at an event to mark Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of slavery in Texas, two years after the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves elsewhere in the United States. ELIJAH NOUVELAGE/REUTERS

It is no secret to anyone that in the last few weeks, less attractive characteristics of both the United States and Canada have been exhibited, which we already know are neighboring nations and that, likewise, now face somewhat complicated situations. And it is that the racist violence of some misfit US police officers produced a white police murder of an African American in Minneapolis (George Floyd), which upset the United States and shocked the world.

While in Canada, reaction to US events prompted the much smoother but inexpressibly tedious practice of bringing political correctness to a level well below the point of diminishing returns.

Likewise, the United States in its competitiveness, veneration for firearms, and almost unconditional fixation on success has always been an immensely creative and productive country, but often frenetic and violent and rarely serene for long. Now, an idealized self-image is presented, but 50 years have passed since there was severe violence in more than one or two American cities at once.

Situations rooted in a legacy

Tesla (TSLA) US Marketshare Not At Risk From New Competition, Says Loup Ventures

Featured Image Credit: Tesla

Loup Ventures seems confident that Tesla’s (NASDAQ: TSLA) US marketshare will not diminish once new competition enters from OEMs.

“Based on the currently available EV models in the US market, along with the models expected to be released next year, we believe Tesla will exit 2021 with a 70–80% market share. If we’re correct, Tesla’s economies of scale will strengthen, making it more difficult for traditional automakers to benefit from the long-term secular shift to electric,” wrote Loup Ventures’ Gene Munster and Christine Pastor.

So far, Tesla has been met with little to no competition in the EV segment. There were predictions that legacy automakers would eat-up some of Tesla’s marketshare once they released their new energy vehicles.

Rex Murphy: The right to your own opinion is a keystone of a true democracy

GETTY IMAGES

It certainly does not have to genuflect a belief that it does not have or a cause that sees its supporters differently or use any formula of words that fashion or social pressure insists that it must.

And it is without a doubt, the right to your own opinion is the basic molecule of human dignity since it is the basic molecule of a true democracy. Being that a crowd is not a court, and a mafia has no conscience. In fact, we have developed institutions and codes that for generations have been the basis of social cohesion and general harmony.

Thus, we have the rule of law, not so much to protect ourselves from evil strangers, but to protect ourselves from ourselves in those moments when passion prevails over reason. Likewise, we maintain the rule of law as the chain-link fence that protects the precious equality of each individual with all other citizens. And perhaps equally important, the rule of law protects every citizen’s right not to be disturbed by state power and protected from sudden bursts of irrationality.

Security guarantors

Winnipeg plant gets $100M from feds to pull protein from peas, canola

Vegetarian burgers made with a canola protein powder at Burcon NutraScience Corp.'s technical centre in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada on Monday, July 15, 2019. , Shannon VanRaes/Bloomberg

OTTAWA — The federal government is helping finance an innovative, new agricultural production plant in Winnipeg that turns peas and canola into protein powders for the food industry.

Merit Functional Foods Corp. plans to have its new 94,000-square-foot production plant at Winnipeg’s Centreport running by the end of the year.

There it will extract protein from peas and canola seeds for use in everything from pre-packaged protein shakes and meat-alternative foods to non-dairy creamers and energy bars.

The company intends to use only Canadian-grown peas and canola and claims to be the first in the world that will produce canola protein for the food industry.

The Federal Reserve’s One Last Hail Mary

Over the last few weeks, the Federal Reserve has been in utter desperation mode to try to revive and keep the American economy on life support. What many in the mainstream media have failed to include in this recent coronavirus economic narrative is that the virus was just the pin of one the biggest bubbles ever created, which we call the central bank bubble revolving around U.S sovereign bonds.

Before we dive deep into this, let’s start with what the Fed has been doing to combat against the coronavirus and to keep markets alive for the time being. To begin, welcome back to the era of the printing press, but this time they have made it clear they will conduct “QE infinity” if this is a prolonged depression, which it will be.

Goldman Sachs Eyes Record Gold Price in Next 12 Months

Even the mainstream is getting bullish on gold.

Goldman Sachs now forecasts record gold prices within the next 12 months.

Goldman analysts say gold will likely reach $2,000 per ounce within the next year thanks to ultra-low interest rates and concerns over currency debasement.

The investment bank raised its 12-month forecast from $1,800 per ounce to $2,000 in a note released last Friday. It also upped its three-month view to $1,800 and its 6-month forecast to $1,900.

Goldman cited a number of factors including “continued debasement concerns” and a weaker dollar. It also expects a pickup in emerging market demand for gold as economies reopen. Analysts said this strength in “development market investment demand” should “persist even as economies recover, supported by fears of debasement and the higher level of economic uncertainty of the crisis.”

Archbishop Viganò’s powerful letter to President Trump: Eternal struggle between good and evil playing out right now

By Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò

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Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò warns the president that the current crises over the coronavirus pandemic and the George Floyd riots are a part of the eternal spiritual struggle between the forces of good and evil.

June 6, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — Editor’s note: Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò has released this powerful letter today to President Trump warning him that the current crises over the coronavirus pandemic and the George Floyd riots are a part of the eternal spiritual struggle between the forces of good and evil. You are not alone in your beliefs on life, faith, family and freedom.

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June 7, 2020

Holy Trinity Sunday
Mr. President,

In recent months we have been witnessing the formation of two opposing sides that I would call Biblical: the children of light and the children of darkness. The children of light constitute the most conspicuous part of humanity, while the children of darkness represent an absolute minority. And yet the former are the object of a sort of discrimination which places them in a situation of moral inferiority with respect to their adversaries, who often hold strategic positions in government, in politics, in the economy and in the media. In an apparently inexplicable way, the good are held hostage by the wicked and by those who help them either out of self-interest or fearfulness.

Elon Musk’s Unlikely Journey: Got To Canada With $2,000 At 17, Dropped Out Of Grad School $110,000 In Debt, Now A Meme Lord

How did Elon Musk grow into the business maverick he is today? It didn’t come easy. Even though the 48-year old tech titan Elon Musk is currently worth more than $40 billion, CNBC reports that the “Tesla and SpaceX boss hasn’t always been so wealthy.”

On my cousin's farm in Canada at 17, wearing a hat on a hat pic.twitter.com/U96ClGz5gZ

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2017

Musk acknowledged (via Twitter), “I arrived in North America at 17 with $2,000, a backpack and a suitcase full of books. Paid my own way through college. Dropped out of Stanford Engineering/Physics grad school with $110,000 in college debt.”

Let’s rewind. Looking back, where did this immigrant’s journey begin? Elon Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa. In his home country, he’d moved to Johannesburg and Durban but always wanted to go to America. In a revealing 2012 interview with Kevin Rose, Musk explains, “It always seemed like when there was cool technology or things happening, it was kinda in the United States. So, my goal as a kid was to get to go to America basically.”

Analysts ask if gold is ready to push above $1,800

(Kitco News) — Building on Friday’s momentum, gold prices are starting the week on a strong note and are pushing back to within striking distance of critical resistance at $1,800 an ounce.

August gold futures last traded at $1,771.70 an ounce, up 1% on the day. According to market analysts, gold is getting a boost Sunday evening as investors start to question the health of the global economic recovery as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread unchecked, particularly in the U.S.

“While social distancing during March and April helped slow the spread, re-opening activities in a number of states — most notably Arizona, Alabama, Arkansas, South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida and Texas — have coincided with a wave of infections that may be spreading further south and west relative to the early affected states. In that sense, the recent increase in cases represents a “rolling,” as opposed to a second, wave of COVID-19 in the U.S.,” said economists from Nomura in a report late Friday.

As the US rolls out new sanctions on Assad, Syria braces for economic devastation

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma vote in Damascus during parliamentary elections in April 2016.

Beirut, Lebanon (CNN) — The United States has rolled out fresh sanctions that aim to drive Syrian President Bashar al-Assad back to a UN-led negotiating table and threaten to devastate Syria’s already floundering economy.

On Wednesday the US State Department and Treasury Department released 39 targets for sanctions, including Assad and his wife Asma al-Assad, marking “the beginning of what will be a sustained campaign of economic and political pressure to deny the Assad regime revenue and support it uses to wage war and commit mass atrocities against the Syrian people,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.

“We anticipate many more sanctions and we will not stop until Assad and his regime stop their needless, brutal war against the Syrian people and the Syrian government agrees to a political solution to the conflict as called for by UNSCR 2254,” he said, referring to a UN Security Council Resolution calling for a ceasefire and political settlement in Syria.

‘The dollar is going to fall very, very sharply,’ warns prominent Yale economist

Stephen Roach, Senior Fellow, Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, Yale University AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Stephen Roach, Yale University senior fellow and former Morgan Stanley Asia chairman, has a warning for U.S. dollar bulls. The prominent economist says that the era of the U.S. buck may be coming to an end and is forecasting a 35% decline soon in the U.S. currency against its major rivals, citing increases in the nation’s deficit and dwindling savings.

The lecturer said during CNBC’s “Trading Nation” on Monday that the rise of China and the decoupling of the U.S. from its trade partners is setting the stage for a dramatic weakening of the U.S. currency in the next few years that is likely to end the supremacy of the monetary unit as the world’s reserve currency.

“The dollar is going to fall very, very sharply,” he told the business network.

Roach’s comments follow similarly themed op-ed that he wrote in Bloomberg last week, in which he specifically declared that the “era of the U.S. dollar’s ‘exorbitant privilege’ as the world’s primary reserve currency is coming to an end.

"I, Who Hates Shorting, Just Shorted the Entire Stock Market. Here's Why"

I hate shorting. The risk-reward relationship is out of whack. It feels crappy. I lost a ton of money shorting the worst highfliers a little too early in late 1999. It’s just nuts to short this market that is even crazier than in late 1999. But this morning, I shared in a comment in our illustrious comment section that I’d just shorted the SPDR S&P 500 ETF [SPY]. My time frame is several months.

I’m sharing this trade so that everyone gets to ridicule me and hail me as a moron and have fun at my expense in the comments for weeks and months every time the market goes up. And I do not recommend shorting this market; it’s nuts. But here’s why I did.

The stock market had just gone through what was termed the “greatest 50-day rally in history.” The S&P 500 index had skyrocketed 47% from the intraday low on March 23 (2,192) to the close on June 8 (3,232). It was a blistering phenomenal rally. Since June 8, the market has gotten off track but not by much. It’s still a phenomenal rally. And it came during the worst economy in my lifetime.

There are now 29.2 million people on state and federal unemployment insurance. There are many more who’ve lost their work who are either ineligible for unemployment insurance or whose state hasn’t processed the claim yet, and when they’re all added up, they amount to over 20% of the labor force. This is horrible.

But stocks just kept surging even as millions of people lost their jobs each week. The more gut-wrenching the unemployment-insurance data, the more stocks soared.

Espionage charges against two Canadians proof soft diplomacy with China isn't working: experts

Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor will be charged with espionage, China has announced. PHOTO ILLUSTRATION

That’s right, former diplomats say China’s decision to charge two Canadians with espionage, after detaining them for more than 18 months, should be a wake-up call to the Trudeau government to stop soft diplomacy and start playing hard. That being the case, Chinese prosecutors announced Friday that Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor would be charged with espionage. Recall that his 2018 arrests came shortly after Canadian officials detained Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver.

Concerning this, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the arrests and charges remain arbitrary and without merit and disappointed that China continues to detain the two men. While Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said each is accused of “secretly gathering state secrets for overseas forces with particularly serious consequences”.

Behind the scenes

Rex Murphy: Maybe CHAZistan will give Canada a seat

Canada certainly missed the UN Security Council, however, CHAZistan’s Raz (rapper/warlord) offered Canada a seat on the New State Tofu and Agriculture Oversight Planning and Meditation Board. There are limits to our presence in the republic of six city blocks. Canada will have no veto rights.

It should be noted that it is clearly not the same as sitting next to the great powers of the UN, but there are some privileges. For example, the Canadian representative will contribute to what is shown at the movie night, be asked for advice on the best way to “personify” the barriers that surround the state, and will have the opportunity to participate in the various discussions on whether the Topsoil layer should go on or under the grass.

There is no doubt that Trudeau has wasted much time and much more money in a futile attempt to join a morally bankrupt institution. And it has wasted relations with other countries by silencing Canada’s voice on other issues, particularly China’s role in the current pandemic.

Not everything is so bad

Private equity steps in where others fear to tread during pandemic

As the coronavirus pandemic spooked rival bidders for cosmetics maker Coty’s professional beauty division, private equity group KKR pounced

Handful of mainly US groups on spending spree despite worldwide lockdowns to halt coronavirus

Johannes Huth, the top executive at private equity group KKR in Europe, had been eyeing cosmetics maker Coty for nearly two decades — longer than even some of its loyalest customers have been using its products, which include Wella hair colour, Marc Jacobs fragrance and Ghd hair straighteners.

As the coronavirus pandemic spooked rival bidders for Coty’s professional beauty division that was put up for sale last year, Mr Huth pounced. He struck two deals in quick succession, agreeing to buy a majority stake in the unit at a cut-price valuation and invest $1bn in Coty, in the process taking a seat on its board.

KKR, which has about $207bn in assets under management, is one of a handful of mostly US-based private equity groups that have taken a bullish view during the crisis. Between them they have aggressively struck deals when others have stayed on the sidelines.

Venezuela's rival presidents prepare to battle over gold in London vaults

LONDON/CARACAS — In the vaults beneath the Bank of England, where foreign nations stash parts of their vast gold reserves, lie 1.7 billion euros ($1.9 billion) of disputed gold bars. Two parties claim access to them.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says they belong to his administration’s central bank. His rival, opposition leader Juan Guaido, who the British government recognizes as Venezuela’s rightful leader, say the bars are his to control.

Next week, a British commercial court will begin deciding whose claim is just, after the Venezuelan central bank (BCV) sued the Bank of England to gain access. A decision is not expected until August or September, the judge wrote in a May 28 ruling.

At stake is a sizeable chunk of the Maduro government’s dwindling overseas assets. Lawyers representing the BCV say much of the gold would be sold to fund Venezuela’s response to the coronavirus, which threatens to overwhelm a health system gutted by six years of economic crisis.

The opposition alleges Maduro wants to use the gold to pay off his foreign allies, which his lawyers deny. Over the past two years, Maduro’s government has removed some 30 tonnes from its reserves in Venezuela to sell abroad for much-needed hard currency, according to people familiar with the operations and the bank’s own data.

A Tidal Wave of Bankruptcies Is Coming

Monica Garwood

Experts foresee so many filings in the coming months that the courts could struggle to salvage the businesses that are worth saving.

Already, companies large and small are succumbing to the effects of the coronavirus. They include household names like Hertz and J. Crew and comparatively anonymous energy companies like Diamond Offshore Drilling and Whiting Petroleum.

And the wave of bankruptcies is going to get bigger.

Edward I. Altman, the creator of the Z score, a widely used method of predicting business failures, estimated that this year will easily set a record for so-called mega bankruptcies — filings by companies with $1 billion or more in debt. And he expects the number of merely large bankruptcies — at least $100 million — to challenge the record set the year after the 2008 economic crisis.

Even a meaningful rebound in economic activity over the coming months won’t stop it, said Mr. Altman, the Max L. Heine professor of finance, emeritus, at New York University’s Stern School of Business. “The really hurting companies are too far gone to be saved,” he said.

Lloyd Wilks: Being a Black man is hard. Being a Black father is even harder

CounselQuest CEO Lloyd Wilks, right, and his father, Clovis Earl Wilks of Pickering, Ont., pose for a photograph on July 13, 2019, on their way to the Calgary Stampede. LLOYD WILKS

Lloyd Wilks is an executive director of CounselQuest Inc., a leader in litigation and corporate investigations support, an active member of the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers and co-founder of Malachy Soiree, an annual fundraiser dedicated to transforming the Neonatal Intensive. Care Unit at St. Michael Hospital in Toronto.

Lloyd Wilks, who is a black man, writes and affirms how difficult it is to be. Plus, he says being a black parent is even more difficult.

Clearly, it cannot be denied that within the black community, women often bear the unequal burden of raising their children, their grandchildren, children of extended families, without parents. Likewise, much has been said and written about black families, such as absent fathers, mothers who take on the role of father to their children, children who become fathers of sisters, brothers, and cousins, men and women young people growing up without a male model at home. The epidemic of black children learning the important lessons of life with little or no contact with their parents. Unfortunately, much of this is true, however, it is not the whole truth.

Undeniable challenges