It is empirically a fact that we are living in the best time in human history. Poverty, sickness, insecurity are following their long term trend lines downward. However this short snippet from a Fareed Zakaria GPS interview explains that does not mean these trends will continue. There was yesterday, is today and will be tomorrow, the possibility of global catastrophe. Our modern connected world has virtually guaranteed that some crisis will affect you or your family in the coming years.…
This short clip from the author of “Prius or Pickup?” Jonathan Weiler, explains that political parties on the left and the right have stopped defining themselves by the size of government and instead focused in emotional responses to identity politics. The discussion uses the US system of Democrat vs Republican but it applies to nearly all parties globally. Political parties now energize there voters by vilifying the other side based on their identity: immigrant vs multi-generation citizen rural vs urban…
There is much hype on the so-called “non-market” clause in the USMCA (aka. NAFTA 2.0): ‘Astonishing’ clause in new deal suggests Trump wants leverage over Canada-China trade talks: experts SOURCE Chinese embassy in Canada condemns ‘US veto’ clause in North America trade deal SOURCE Beijing attacks USMCA clause seen as blocking efforts to expand trade with Canada, Mexico SOURCE Alarm bells ring over non-market economy clause SOURCE and it many political opponents wrote things like: Conservative MP Michael Chong accused…
In an era of apparently undeniable Russian state sponsored interference in American and UK Elections social media companies like Facebook, Twitter & Google have been called to account for their part in the ‘attacks’. This begs the question, how much responsibility do internet and social media companies really have for blocking misinformation by primarily foreign entities? In this video Bloomberg explores Keith Rabois’, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist and PayPal Vice President, opinion that social media is just another form…
Over the years many knowledgeable people have downplayed the contributions that Solar and Wind can play in the future. On the other side we keep hearing about massive increases in Solar and Wind electricity production due to costs dropping precipitously. So we wanted to know how often the so called experts are correct and how often their predictions are wrong. For the purposes of this article we will focus on predictions from the IEA (International Energy Association) because it is…
There has been much talk lately about the United States removing military personnel from Germany, Japan and South Korea in an effort to save money. In 2016, future President Trump said “They do not pay us. But they should be paying us, because we are providing tremendous service and we’re losing a fortune” SOURCE In 2018, the Pentagon is analyzing the cost and impact of a large-scale withdrawal or transfer of American troops stationed in Germany, amid growing tensions between President Trump…
Kim Jong-Un announced at a news conference that North Korea would be sending a man to the sun within ten years! A reporter said – “But the sun is too hot. How can your man land on the sun?” There was a stunned silence. Nobody knew how to react. Kim Jong-Un quietly answered, “We will land at night”. The gathering and everyone in North Korea watching on television broke into thunderous applause. Back in Washington, Donald Trump and his entourage…
There is recent evidence that robots will not take all the manual labour jobs and that in fact, if you live in first world countries you will likely gain jobs from factories coming back to the US, Canada, EU, UK, Australia… We have been on the road to mass robotic automation for about a decade now and while there is much left to learn in our uncertain future, there is now enough data to see some unexpected trends developing. Most…
We ask this question sincerely and without malice: What’s Wrong With Immediate Deportations Of Illegal Immigrants? We are proposing a streamlining of the process that removes the judicial review process to a a much more efficient non-judicial initial review of illegal migrants taking place at a much lower level (somewhere above the the Customs Officers but below the IRB). Who Decides If A Migrant is “Illegal” Under Todays Immigration System? In Canada these case reviews are handled by the Immigration…
In our article BoycottUSA and BoycottTrump Does Not Mean Not Buying American, we explain that China is applying there retaliatory tariffs to Donald Trump supporters and no the US as a whole. That brings up the question of why China would target Boeing. Boeing is based in Chicago and Chicago did not support Trump in the 2016 and they certainly don’t support him now: The map to the right shows how Chicago voted; neighborhood by neighborhood voted against Donald Trump…
There is a growing global ‘movement’ for “Trump Free” products, which to most people means a boycott of American made products. If you are one of those people you should be thinking about two things: Boycotts Backfire Boycotts usually INCREASE the sale of a particular product because boycotts: are like free advertising in that it raises awareness of the product encourages people on the other side of the issue to by more Trumps support is only in rural states meaning…
After the G7 (or G6 + Trump) meeting in Quebec on June 9th 2018, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau became the latest target of the Trump White House’s venom: “There’s a special place in Hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door,” Peter Navaro on the Fox News Sunday Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump PM Justin Trudeau of Canada acted…
In yet another unintended consequence of US President Donald Trump’s (and his minions) lack of control, his nasty comments towards Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after the G7 summit in Quebec resulted in a major political boost for both Trudeau and Canada. “There’s a special place in Hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door,” Peter Navaro on…
After World War 2 the US (and West in general) supported its former enemies. Rebuilding cities, legal systems, and economies on a massive scale. Germany and Japan were the primary beneficiaries of that financial aid and guidance and today those two countries are large stable entities that improve the West’s standard of living by providing both solid trading partners and political allies. Some argue that those countries now take “our” jobs when in fact the evidence is clear that those…
It is well established that even well intentioned government intervention in industry very often ends up causing more problems than it solves. Today one of the issues facing the United States is a loss of jobs in the steel industry and so President Trump claimed this is a National Security Issue and so used his unilateral power to impose a 25% tariff on imports of steel into the United States. On its face, this seems like a good idea. Simplistically,…
In the last decade the Dutch have reduced prison inmate populations by 50% and those sentences average to about 90 days in jail. Many people expected this drastic reduction of inmates to lead to a notable increase in crime because: Dangerous, proven criminals are being quickly released back onto the street There is virtually no deterrent effect to being jailed in the Netherlands Contrary to this expectation the fact is that Dutch system has also reduced crime by nearly 40%.…