Canada's conservative party leader, Pierre Poilievre talks about the law Justin Trudeau just passed in Canada's House of Commons.
Remember, Canada's prime minister is the same guy who thinks that the idea of a flat earth is a new idea:
Sorry, that's a dumbass. I know it's an ad hominem attack, but he is a dumbass. YouTube felt it necessary to post a warning below the above video stating:
Flat Earth is an archaic and scientifically disproven conception of the Earth's shape as a plane or disk. Many ancient cultures subscribed to a flat-Earth cosmography. The idea of a spherical Earth appeared in ancient Greek philosophy with Pythagoras. However, most pre-Socratics retained the flat-Earth model.
[emphasis added]
When you are way more wrong than even Wikipedia - dumbass.
Joe Manchin has convinced voters he's not a typical Democrat even though he eventually cedes to Democrat positions on most everything - even the stuff he rails against. Now he's complaining he was duped by Let's Go Brandon and the Democrats. Joe Manchin is either a liar or an idiot. We all knew this would happen, why didn't he?
The Trump lead over De Santis in the race for the Republican nomination for president in 2024, seems to be widening to the level of unassailable. It's early, it's very early. But this margin is not insignificant.
I think a lot of conservative (Republican) voters would be happy to see four more years of president Trump followed by eight years of De Santis as president. That would be my preferred option simply because America needs four years of house cleaning (at a minimum) followed by 8 years of strategic rebuilding. I'm more inclined to believe that Trump would be willing to tear down the bloated, self-serving institutions that went after him than De Santis who would be a great leader but less invested in cleaning up a truly messy and dysfunctional federal beaurocracy. That's not to say De Santis wouldn't do it, but his motivation would not be as strong as president Trump's would be.
At some point I'll have to discuss my thoughts on the implications of the impending Trump arrest in New York. I believe there's a lot to discuss about it; motivations, implications and to a lesser extent the technical aspects and likely outcome from a legal perspective.
For now, here are Black Conservative Perspective's take and Tim Pool's take, as they both make some interesting points as well as providing some useful context.
Last week in the Netherlands, there was a big win for farmers who have been fighting back against oppressive fertilizer regulations that would fundamentally gut the industry. The Netherlands is one of the world's largest agricultural exporters. They have achieved what the Canadian trucker protests known as the Freedom Convoy could not do.
A brand new party, known as the BBB for short have won the most seats in the recent parliamentary elections.
I mean come on, do they expect us to believe this stuff? It's getting harder and harder to fathom that this is not some sort of insider joke on the public. Or have we just reached the outer edge of reality's bell curve?
Keynesian dopamine dopes flooded world economies over the last several years with cash through both fiscal and monetary policies that were rash and drastically ill-conceived. We may be reaching the painful payment point now for that stupidity. Maybe not. But there is pain that inevitably has to be felt at some point when the hangover from loose money kicks in. This could be the start of it. Again, not necessarily, but at some point it WILL happen. That's true if what we are seeing happening in banking right now is not the main event.
There is a clear through line from the spendthrift Biden administration policies to the current crisis. The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan overstimulated the economy, pushing inflation up to the fastest pace in four decades. Excess savings flooded the banking system, pumping banks like Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) full of what we now see are flight-prone supersized deposits.
...A research paper from the New York Fed recently found that increased demand accounts for two-thirds of inflation—and fiscal stimulus was responsible for half or more of the increase in demand.
The Fed accommodated the Biden administration’s reckless fiscal policy by holding interest rates near zero even after the economy had begun to recover from the pandemic and lockdowns. Massive quantitative easing held down bond yields not just for Treasuries but for mortgage-backed securities as well.
My firm belief is that they keep downplaying monetary policy impacts; they are far stronger than fiscal policy impacts by a magnitude. Regardless, both were completely wrong-headed and share the blame. The takeaway: Keynesian economists are wrong, they have always been wrong; their economic model is wrong and they keep trying to kill the economy with their boneheaded solutions - that ARE THE PROBLEM.
An intelligent man, exposed to some intelligent arguments, is eventually able to share his knowledge with others. Joe Rogan is a perfect example; here he explains the brilliance of the American system of government to Bert Kreischer.
With inflation creeping back (the downturn was honestly too fast to be real and sustainable for a number of reasons), the Fed may revert to rate hikes.
(Bloomberg) -- Underlying US consumer prices rose in February by the most in five months, forcing a tough choice for Federal Reserve officials weighing still-rapid inflation against banking turmoil in their next interest-rate decision.
The consumer price index, excluding food and energy, increased 0.5% last month and 5.5% from a year earlier, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data out Tuesday. Economists see the gauge — known as the core CPI — as a better indicator of underlying inflation than the headline measure.
This likely means a rate hike if not this month, then soon.
Two years ago, and one year ago, I was predicting terrible stagflation. Not world ending stagflation but certainly an economic malaise. Lately I've been starting to think we've weathered the worst and maybe managed a bumpy landing (for now at least). I don't think the problems have gone away but maybe we've managed to postpone them for a while.
According to economist Nouriel Roubini, maybe not:
The raw footage they don't want you to see over the January 6th "insurrection" is pretty telling; the Democrats and accomplices like Liz Cheney were lying to you all along. I mean, we all knew it but the proof is finally coming out. I listened to a closed-ear leftist (who still calls it an insurrection) on Breitbart News Daily on Sirius XM satellite radio this morning. He was arguing that the thousands of hours of footage should not be released. Why? He didn't want to see the truth, and that's worse than the liars.
Meanwhile in Canada, China's election interference is about to be swept under the rug because the controlling leftist coalition can't afford people knowing the truth.
President Trump spoke at CPAC. Afterwards, and right on schedule, the media tried to turn it into either a nothingburger or a wildly inaccurate and misleading speech. Whether you like Trump as the 2024 Republican nominee or not, he's far more correct than the mainstream media.
More from Canada today - two different provinces are taking two different approaches to dealing with drug addiction.
Over at the libertarian Reason magazine (and others) advocating for legalizing all drugs is positioned as freedom. But really drug addiction is slavery. No society works where there is unfettered access to the tools for self-destructive behavior. I've flirted with the idea that legalization makes sense on some level but I cannot get behind it. In the end it's not only enabling addiction, it's societal Darwinism in the extreme. The notion that if someone can't handle it, that's their problem. That's cold. If society is judged on how it treats its most vulnerable, the idea of drug legalization is very telling about those who espouse it. It's also a recipe for societal decay along the way. Addiction will grow. Guaranteed.
The one Canadian example of handing out free drugs is really the government as a death merchant. Thank God, Alberta is taking a more real and humane approach. Alberta is not likely to solve the problem but it is trying to help people beat their addiction rather than just servicing the problem. That's definitely more noble.
Jack Chapple has an interesting take on demographics in the 21st century, arguing that only one country will be able to emerge from a global downturn in population [SPOILER ALERT: If you want to skip over the details behind his predicted winner, it's Egypt]. Here's his argument, before I move on the my own premise which is markedly different.
A lot of what he points out is simply factual.Developed countries have a serious demographic challenge that no one has really every overcome to this point. Global population is expected to start to decline at some point in this century (or perhaps the next). As Chapple points out, this creates economic challenges on a global scale. Not to mention, it may create demographic challenges that are even more catastrophic than economic ones.
Peter Zeihan sees the same demographic trends, which seems undeniable. He sees different winners emerging than does Chapple:
Regardless of who might win globally, and I do think that the United States will be fine, there is the opportunity of a century for conservatives in the United States, and really the entirety of Western civilization that may pass us by if we do not seize it right now and begin building ahead for it.
I'm speaking of what I have argued in favor of doing before, what Jeff Deist has also argued before. De-urbanization. I'll argue for it again now with an additional flavor added because it serves two purposes with one effort.
Technology has finally enabled de-urbanization. You do not need to live close to a major city to be able to commute to your job (in large part, manufacturing and some other industries remain aside). That means you can live in a small town, or some other remote rural location and work from home. This obviates the need for office space, for commuter trains, for massively expanded super highways in urbanized locations, for subways, for as many bank machines, and coffee shops etc. Most of those things do not go away, they morph and disperse into a more diffused set of locations. Small towns grow, big megalopolis sized cities shrink. Why? Housing costs, crime stats, quality of life differences, among other reasons.
This requires a lot of transition. Much as the United States and much of the Western world are transitioning production away from China (finally), with the adjunct pains of transition, transition to a more rural or at least less urban nation will be painful in the short term. New fiber optic cabling spanning tens of thousands of miles must be laid. That's a primary requirement. But so too will be water, sewage handling, fuel pipelines, medical facilities, police services, and everything necessary to support smaller local communities that are spread further apart. These things do not happen overnight and they certainly do not happen without a concerted political effort to make the option to de-urbanize possible. That's what needs to be happening right now.
There are certainly benefits for conservatives if this geographic shift occurs. Urban centers tend to be far more liberal and rural areas and smaller towns tend to be far more conservative. This is an environment that offers home field advantage as it were, in terms of political momentum. Smaller communities tend to be more religious, more friendly, and cleaner. They also may help level the playing field between mega-corporations and mom and pop shops. It could help regrow the entrepreneurial spirit that made America a great economic power .
Here's the added benefit that not only benefits conservative demographics, it argues against the inevitability of population decline and global economic stagnation: rural populations have higher birth rates than urban populations. It's easier to raise children in an environment that is safer, that has more room for them to play, that does not require tens of thousands of extra dollars spent on car payments and mortgages and commutes and enhanced security etc. With less distraction there's more opportunity to procreate. There's more time to spend with family. That benefits conservatives. It benefits America, and it benefits America's contribution to global population. It's a win win win.
Lastly, here's a bonus thought on this; it would be easier to co-opt the environmental movement to get the political effort started because you can argue it will result in a significantly lower carbon footprint without the need for such a massive volume of commuters. As conservatives, we just need to get out in front of this because this opportunity of a century will not remain available forever. States should probably start this effort on a localized basis. If you live in Kansas for example, this is something that can be started in a more localized effort, which makes it easier and the chances that you can succeed that much higher.
It's all over the internet now; it turns out that the conspiracy theorists were right. The COVID virus was probably created in a Chinese lab. President Trump was right.