Technically Speaking: If Everyone Sees It, Is It Still A Bubble?

 

As Mark Hulbert noted recently, “everyone” is worrying about a “bubble” in the stock market. It plots the relative frequency of Google searches based on the term ‘stock market bubble.

'Unjustified fears': When COVID-19 anxiety stops making sense

Stittsville Golf Club, one of hundreds of Ontario golf facilities closed by provincial order. PHOTO BY TIM BAINES/POSTMEDIA

Polls keep showing that the public believes COVID-19 disease is way deadlier and more pervasive than it really is

Conrad Black: The climate of fear that gave way to unjustifiable environmental policies

A carbon tax is just a tax increase falsely masquerading as planetary salvation

A carbon tax is just a tax increase falsely masquerading as planetary salvation, our existence as human beings is threatened by climate change. Yet there is a great deal of learned dissent from that conclusion, and even those reports most frequently cited as evidence that the end is nigh if we don’t pull up our socks and, in the case of Canada, shut down Alberta, if read carefully, do not justify the terrifying headlines that the media normally attaches to them. President Richard Nixon, who founded the Environmental Protection Agency and 642 national parks because his parents, in his youth, were too poor to afford real vacations, so they made extensive use of state and national parks. In Canada, the Progressive Conservative party under Brian Mulroney had an enviable record in environmental matters, for which the former prime minister has been justly recognized.

Diane Francis: Trudeau is experimenting on his people - and the world is watching

This week, Ottawa doubled-down on its policy of treating the population like human guinea pigs by opening the door to mixing vaccines, writes Diane Francis. This is playing jazz with Canadian lives. PHOTO BY REUTERS/DADO RUVIC/ILLUSTRATION

 This week, Ottawa doubled-down on its policy of treating the population like human guinea pigs by opening the door to mixing vaccines.

Federal Debt and Financing the Biden Spending Proposals

The federal deficit has become a front-page issue. These deficits generate a need for more taxes, so the Treasury Secretary recently suggested an increase in corporate tax rates as a starter. Other tax hikes will be considered, but the most immediate option to obtain the funding for the planned federal spending is to sell more US sovereign debt. It’s not just that the total amount of US debt relative to income is high , but the rate of growth at the margin is accelerating.

#MacroView: No, Bonds Aren't Overvalued. They're A Warning Sign.

 

#MacroView: No, Bonds Aren't Overvalued. They're A Warning Sign.

The basic premise is that overpaying for earnings today leads to lower rates of return in the future. Of course, given the flood of liquidity from global Central Banks, the overvaluation of markets is of no surprise. While Central Bank interventions boost asset prices in the short-term, there is an inherently negative impact on economic growth in the long term. At maturity, the principal gets returned to the «lender» along with the final interest payment.

Rex Murphy: We care nothing for free speech - Trudeau plan to regulate the internet is but a symptom

 

The YouTube app on an iPad in Baltimore on March 20, 2018. PHOTO BY PATRICK SEMANSKY /THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Freedom of speech is not the high holy ideal it once was. Freedom of expression, the wider concept, expression as thought, speech, art, performance and protest, is likewise no longer the clear and unchallengeable central core value of our democracies. They have, alas, often been broken, but until very recent days, whenever they were violated, especially by state force, a genuine, near reflex response was outrage and condemnation. As an ideal, free expression has been ever-present as a guiding star to the proper operations of any democracy.