Jair Bolsonaro could be “the Trump of Brazil” | CBC News

Conservative Brazilian lawmaker Jair Bolsonaro flashes two thumbs up as he poses for a photo with cadets during a ceremony marking Army Day, in Brasilia, Brazil, April 19, 2018. (Eraldo Peres/The Associated Press)

Jair Messias Bolsonaro is a Brazilian politician and retired military officer, he is also a man who outrages progressive Brazilians with his insults directed against women, gays, blacks and indigenous people, but whose crude and violent rhetoric has touched the tone with an angry section of the electorate.

Due to all that Bolsonaro has said, now many label him as the "Trump of Brazil" and that there is no doubt that he has caused a stir with everything he has expressed.

For his part, Bolsonaro has vowed to scrap environmental laws, open the Amazon to ranchers and miners and confiscate the lands of the indigenous people of Brazil.

Fears arise for food security and protectionist subsidies

Author: James Alexander Michie

Economic deficiency causes the implementation of commercial tactics of the era of depression in different sectors. Currently, everything points to states implementing commercial tactics once seen in the era of depression which was a global economic crisis, positioned as the longest in time, of greater depth and that affected more countries in the century XX.

Countries like Canada in the fight for home and own love clearly protects through their own national industries measures of the effects of foreign protectionism, leaving as a consequence that citizens are affected by paying much more for food that would easily be cheaper if they were acquired from world markets, forging ever more concern about food security. This is a self-destructive behavior in terms of economy, according to some economists specialized in international trade.

James Alexander Michie | CBC News: As yield curves threaten to invert, market watchers sit up and pay attention

When the yield curve inverts, it's usually a sign the U.S. is headed for recession

A red figurine sits atop a trader's desk at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange last year. As short-term interest rates rise and long-term ones stay low, many economists are starting to worry about inverted yield curves and their knack for predicting recessions. (Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg)

It may not have escalated to the level of water cooler talk, but an obscure and obtuse-sounding economic indicator is a hot topic of conversation among the investment community of late.

The yield curve on government debt — the gap between how much long-term bonds pay out versus short-term ones — is at its lowest level in more than a decade, and opinion is somewhat divided on how bad a sign it is for the economy.

Under normal circumstances, the yield on long-term bonds should be much higher than the yield on short-term ones to properly reward investors for the risk of waiting longer to get paid, particularly since inflation can eat away at value over time.

Read the full story here:
http://jamesalexandermichie.com/james-alexander-michie-cbc-news-yield-curves-threaten-invert-market-watchers-sit-pay-attention/

James Alexander Michie | CBC News: Canadians head into fight that may be 'unwinnable' in Mali

'No clear good guys,' even among those welcoming foreign troops

Canadian soldiers move towards a Chinook transport helicopter in a training exercise. Before their deployment to Mali, they practised the rapid removal of injured troops. (David Common/CBC)

Canada's military has already learned the lesson that your supposed friends may actually be working against you. That those professing a willingness for peace have never put down their guns and that they are connected to narco-trafficking and need the chaos to continue so they can profit from it.

It happened in Afghanistan and it's happening now in Canada's newest mission: Mali.

"One of the biggest problems isn't that we have really tough rivals but that we have really bad allies," says Aisha Ahmad, a terrorism researcher at the University of Toronto who regularly travels to Mali. "Those groups are implicated in cocaine trafficking and illicit business and have become financially incentivized to maintain the status quo."

Read the full story here:
http://jamesalexandermichie.com/james-alexander-michie-cbc-news-canadians-mali/

James Alexander Michie | CBC News: China has unused weapons in escalating trade war: Don Pittis

China plays a careful strategic game in the face of conflicting U.S. statements on trade

China has opened the door to new lending to help small and large companies survive the adjustment to U.S. tariffs. (Reuters)

With only days to go before China and the United States trigger punishing tariff penalties on one another's exports, it seems impossible to imagine either country backing down.

As both sides talk tough, once again global markets, including in Shanghai, New York and Toronto, declined sharply.

On Sunday, China had announced its latest weapon in its economic battle with the U.S., namely 700 billion yuan ($142 billion Cdn) in new stimulus for domestic industries.

Read the full story here:
http://jamesalexandermichie.com/james-alexander-michie-cbc-news-china-don-pittis/