Pardons...Pardon Me?

Of course, they're legal, if not unsavory. But then I remember quite a few others -- especially of the Clinton variety -- that were less than stellar. I could name names but nah, 2021 lawsuits are not at the top of my agenda. 

But it does make you think, doesn't it? You know, how Trump is clearly off the benches and pardoning every living, breathing, human being who could potentially cause him major trouble, except, of course, for Cohen. Maybe, just maybe, that's a big mistake. We'll see.

In any event, for a guy who screamed to the rafters continuously about The Russian Hoax, Trump's pardons are one hell of a useful second act.

Let's just call it legal self-indulgence and leave it at that. Something tells me that the Trump people won't be storming the Bastille come January 20th. Trump will take his pill and if he's got a modicum of class and hasn't been brought up by wolves, will ultimately show for the Biden Inaugural. 

So, the game plan seems to be to go out with more of a thump than a bang. To disappear into the mist as a political afterthought while gaming the GOP system in Ivanka's favor. That's where Trump will really excel, in greasing the skids for Ivanka. 

To no one's surprise, most Republicans will remain ball-less, except for characters like Sasse, Rubio and Cruz who have other ideas for 2024. Otherwise, how many of these future or potential candidates would actually speak up?

It's all fun and games right down to the 2021 wire! Veto a bill here, shit-disturb there but get your packing in ahead of time by all means.

Trump's on the way out. But the big question is: will he really be missed? Over to all of you, readers.

Here's How A President Of The United States Dies At The White House.

It starts by having nothing but contempt for democracy, the rule of law and precious federal institutions. Make no mistake, only an autocrat or a tyrant in the making would go that route. It's all about holding on to power -- any which way but loose with a total disregard for the political system, its stability and the best interests of the nation and its people.

Once again, it's all about him and his tremendous pride and ego. He simply can't stomach the loss -- largely self-inflicted given that the guy on his best day ain't exactly nice or principled. I have no time for political despots of a totalitarian variety, whether they come in fascist or communist form.

The American people have spoken and highly civilized citizens and residents have largely grudgingly accepted the result. 46 is on the way and the transition needs to get in high gear.

But not in the Oval Office where heated discussions are all about declaring martial law to keep the president-elect out. 

Well you know what, to betray the American constitution, you need military help -- you know the military, those gals and guys who quite literally have given their blood and lives for the country, who've sworn an oath to protect the nation from all enemies foreign and domestic and to preserve the constitution.

Sure, a minority in the armed forces will no doubt rally to his side but not most of the troops. They know that in January, the United States will have a new commander in chief and they as always will faithfully serve the new president.

So, that means converging on The White House with military muscle, should that become necessary and getting him out by force come hell or high water. No one wants that. The White House is no bunker and democracy has no chapter about last stands.

In the event of such a horrible calamity, soldiers will do their job and lives will be lost on both sides. And worse than that, it will be like putting a match to gunpowder all across the United States. That means civil war if the transition does not go the way of every peaceful political transition in the long history of the Republic.

In other words, be careful what you wish for, or plan for, because millions of Americans could potentially pay the ultimate price in its wake.

An American president is all about the best interests of the country and her people, whether they voted for him or not.

With God's help, it won't be any different this time.

Electoral College Time!

Tomorrow, the various electors meet in their state capitals to cast their votes for president. Don't expect any major surprises count-wise as the system does not allow electors, for the most part, to change their vote, especially when state law binds them to cast as per the electoral college results.

You might see a few write-ins but in most states, an elector who doesn't vote the EC line simply gets replaced, as several Republican electors found out last time when they tried to vote against Trump.

In short, it's the second last nail in the Trump coffin. The final one comes in January when Congress' lame duck joint session certifies the national result for president and vice-president.

As for Trump, expect to see him on the reviewing stand at Biden's swearing-in. Trump knows full well that if he didn't show that he would pass for the ultimate presidential political loser and Trump can't afford to take a chance of seeing history books making him out to be both a sore loser and a political coward. 

So, he'll be there but not exactly with bells on.

COVID-19: No Pre-Planned Apology Marathon?

And they say that Telford and the rest of the Prime Ministerial BrainTrust just aren't that politically swift: at least they haven't pre-planned an apology marathon to family members of all those who'll drop dead between now and September because this Prime Minister didn't get them any vaccines...

WHY The United States Is Still The Greatest Political Power On The Face Of The Earth.

News flash, it has absolutely nothing to do with Trump, Biden or anyone else. It's because the United States of America is a treasured democracy with most Americans being, when push comes to shove, patriots who believe in democracy and putting country first à la John McCain. 

Sure, so many are overly rabid Democrats or Republicans but even those people are smart enough not to send their cherished nation down the road to Civil War II, where they would have the "enjoyable" experience of watching their loved ones slaughtered by the other side: nothing quite like bringing Americans together, come hell or high water, by thinking about the distinct possibility of other Americans suddenly killing their family members. And make no mistake, in a bona fide civil war, each side goes for the other's men, women and children. Innocents pay the ultimate price in any such conflict.

The present presidential incumbent doesn't have the brains to change his rhetoric -- in fact, does he really give a damn if his actions lead to Civil War II, particularly given the fact that the sore loser has already said that he will cowardly leave the United States, with all his marbles, if he loses this election, which quite clearly he has. Trump is a big-lie propagator. He knows how well that tactic worked for Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc. So, Trump is all about himself, safely nested far away from the fray should he provoke civil war in his supposedly beloved country.

But almost all Americans are both smarter and better than that. They're true and life-long patriots. They saw in 2000 Gore concede and then take it back -- only to accept the end result after the SCOTUS ruled on the vote in Florida. And everyone, pissed off or otherwise accepted it. You didn't see Clinton threatening not to leave the White House.

In short, Americans won't do what it takes to ignite the civil war fuse. They are too decent, principled and honorable for that. Too bad this president is nothing more than all about himself and his perks. Remember, that no American president has ever, ever, done what Trump is doing now. 

Trump: it's the big-lie, right into the history books. He simply isn't capable of doing what's right, not for his supposed party, not for his country and not even for his God.

From Trump's Georgia Blues To Biden's National Blues.

Trump, by virtue of being a certifiable idiot, clearly outclasses any other lesser pejorative insult he can hurl on others. To wit: he's called Georgia Governor Kemp a "moron" and a "nut job". Trump also regrets his previous endorsement of Kemp.

For the umpteenth time, Trump is proving once again that he isn't now and has never been a Republican. He's an absolute self-indulgent and self-centered political charlatan, period. Trump doesn't give a damn about Republican political fortunes -- it's all and only about him -- and thank God, finally, finally, Republicans are starting to get it as to who in fact is the ultimate political loser, and it ain't them.

This clueless being has taken two run-off Senate races that were practically in the bag for Perdue and Loeffler and turned them into likely Democratic wins -- Warnock and Ossoff must be on political cloud Nine as they watch the vote consolidate in their favour. 

Republicans are pissed to a significant degree with Trump's serial disregard of The Reagan Republican Law of never criticizing a fellow Republican and the end result: they won't go out there and crossover to the Democrats. Instead, they'll just stay home. In Canada, we call that the Ignatieff Effect.

On now to the Biden Blues: it's all about The Fed and money printing. It's also about stimulus but most important of all, Yellin. The Fed is already way past investing over nine trillion in this economy and everyone who's even remotely sentient knows that they will under Biden at least double that. That will first and foremost absolutely kill the U.S. dollar and send inflation up but not necessarily all the way to projected hyperinflation. 

Far more worrying is Yellen's selection as Treasury Secretary. She knows every nook and cranny of The Fed and likely will be the person who manages to merge The Fed with Treasury. And that, will have beyond ominous consequences on the national debt and deficits. 

Make no mistake, The Fed buying every debt instrument in sight is way beyond being economically dangerous. So too is The Fed buying stocks by way of their arrangement with Blackrock. So, expect the combined Treasury-Fed to stimulate right until the United States finally goes to Hell in a handbasket. But before it gets there, America will see first a huge debt market crash, followed by a stock market crash unparalleled with anything previously seen in history. These twin crashes will make 1929-30 look like a light-hearted walk in the park and as sure as I'm breathing, both are on the way. It's no longer a question of if, but merely a matter of when.

In short, the road to good intentions is a first-class ticket to economic hell. Biden means well, Yellin means well and so does Powell. But that in the final analysis, doesn't cut the mustard. It's all about the top getting richer to infinity while middle and lower class America burns. 

And it's already well on its way.

Teflon Trudeau?

You know me. I've never been one to preemptively start popping those champagne corks just because of polls. You see, pretty much all recent polls have the Liberals ahead, with some showing a lead of double digits. Colour me skeptical.

As most of you know, polling in recent times have often demonstrated that it's not so much what they say that's critical -- instead, it's more about how they say it and what respondents deliberately withhold or quite deliberately distort.

In short, we've come full circle and are right back to Diefenbaker: polls, are for 🐕 🐶.

Who can forget the most recent disaster where the highly anticipated Biden wave failed to show up or was immediately dead on arrival. But I digress.

This Prime Minister along with his so-called brain trust in the PMO no doubt think it's long in the bag. That's certainly not how I see it. Sure, the election right now would be Trudeau's to lose given the fact that even after five years, this PM still can't walk and chew gum at the same time.

The vast compilation of Liberal screw-ups are Trudeau screw-ups, courtesy of this Prime Minister. It's beyond remarkable to see a PM who has so little political acumen -- not to mention sound judgment. Quite frankly, the mind positively boggles.

So, it's up to O'Toole to make personal headway between now and the vote. Every move he makes has to be build-on and positive in nature, otherwise the Conservatives are dead politically, even before we get out of the gate.

Trudeau goes out of his way to provide Canadians with tens of reasons why they shouldn't vote Liberal. O'Toole needs to do the opposite and most especially turn the party into a soft, warm, kitten that draws people in. The Kitten-Conservatives. 😸 The party with a magnetic pull rather than acting as a repelling force that's only strength is to repeatedly play right into Liberal hands...

If anyone can turn this around it's O'Toole but he'll have to read members the riot act and if necessary, kick a little CPC ass. So many regions are looking for a compilation of reasons, or even legitimate excuses, to dump Trudeau in the next election.

It's our job in this party not to mimic Liberal efforts at sinking the good ship Trudeau. We need to do everything humanly possible to keep our own vessel afloat.

That's O'Toole's job  and no one knows that any better than O'Toole himself. Stay tuned.

The Road To True Self Identification.

In two words: Elliot Page. I imagine it will help a lot of trans people, some struggling with finding their true self, others not. Not only is he truly self-aware after a long journey, but he has found inner peace and they are as one.

If only the rest of us could reach that level of self-identification, self-love and inner contentment. For some, self-identity is seemingly set from early on in life while others will struggle with who their authentic self is for a lifetime. So sad. If only one could spend a day in their skin to feel their steps on their journey: doubt, anxiety, revelation, inner journey toward self-identification, acceptance both within and without and hopefully but more than likely, joy and self-contentment.

To be a member of any minority group requires tremendous courage en partant. Getting up in the morning and going about your life imposes on some an inappropriate and unacceptable categorization when being pegged by others. Alas, it shouldn't be that way but so often regrettably, it is.

What I wouldn't give to have the strength and sense of purpose of those who have luckily found their way, or at least hopefully remain steadfast on their inner journey.

We are all special in one way or another. That should always be recognized, appreciated, admired and most importantly, respected.

It is so easy to hate, to give in to ignorance, fear or the lesser demons of our nature. But God and humanity itself are naturally predisposed toward love, first of oneself and then others.

There is, in the final analysis but one thing that you can genuinely expect of yourself: it's called being your authentic self and if you're both grounded and truly lucky, you'll get to go there and be all you can be in this life.

That's my fondest wish and hope for Elliot. I don't like the word expectation but they seem to have arrived at a wonderful place of self-knowledge and true inner contentment. May he and those around them enjoy life's piquant and purpose for the rest of their days.

Why QE To Infinity Won't Work Even Under Biden.

Doug Casey calls it The Greater Depression. I prefer The Greatest Depression humankind will have seen to date. And assuredly, it's on the way. Let's start with the why: to begin, if this ongoing financial crisis has taught us anything, it's that you can't deflate the debt with unlimited QE, Yield-Curve Control, MMT, dropping interest rates, negative interest rates or reducing the velocity of money to zero. None of that works, period.

So the debate right now is on whether we are still in deflation or in an escalading inflationary period where prices are steadily rising along with capital input costs. Central banks are pushing for two percent inflation -- all the while they are cooking the inflation books -- not to mention the actual nominal value of how much QE they have already spent since this crisis began. Here's a hint: ultimately, it will be way beyond the few trillions of dollars they'd like us to believe. Just look at 2008: One estimate calculates that The Fed and the federal government spent a combined 498 Billion, with The Fed's portion being 21 Billion. But reality is even more crushing: The Fed actually spent 29 Trillion on Wall Street banks' trading houses and lending money to other national central banks and foreign banks. 

In that sense, today's financial crisis is but an extension of the last one, where in the intervening years, nothing was done to address debt and deficits, banking and corporate investment practices nor the canary in the coal mine known as derivatives and junk bonds-- the satanic instruments of the financial services industry across the globe. In 2008, they pedaled and pushed garbage as it related to mortgages and other securities and they are doing the same now. All that counts for them is greed. They don't give a tinker's damn about the soundness of the American economy, much less the economic welfare of the American people. In a more just society, we would remedy these deliberate deficiencies either with a jail cell or at least on a theoretical plane, a firing squad. Nothing like concentrating a few minds on Wall Street and breaking longstanding investment patterns for the greater good.

And then there's the question of arguing about or ignoring legitimate facts, none of which is greater than the absolute insolvency of the investment and money-center banking community. Its most recent roots can be traced back to September 2019 when The Repo Crisis took shape with The Fed coming in on a white horse to avert disaster. IMHO, that was the beginning of the end if you will, the execution date, largely postponed by Fed monetary clemency.

Powell's initial instincts were at least in partial terms on target: if you're talking about a world that has sound economic, market and money policy. He started to increase interest rates but then was quietly persuaded by the political powers that be to change course, not to mention The New York Federal Reserve, which now, as in 2008, actually runs the show. Three guesses who owns The New York Fed... To put it another way: like in 2008, QE was and is the appropriate mitigating instrument but it's definitely not the cure-all. Rather, in the long-term, it only kicks the can further down the road and intensifies the economic calamity that ultimately and inevitably comes to pass. But there comes a point where QE deliberately intertwined with a steady reduction of interest rates become at best, counterproductive and at worst, increasingly ineffective. In short, the longer QE is in place, the less bang for the buck you get with an inevitable cut-off date in the offing. 

When Biden takes office, he will simply rubber-stamp present monetary policy and call for ever increasing QE, along with further reducing interest rates to net zero. He's won't pursue a policy of negative rates. Thank God.

What the United States needs is increased inflation, a return to a gradual growing of money velocity and slow and steady interest rate increases. Those are the signs of a healing and growing economy. So, you have to think out of the box: you keep QE in place for now and adjust it according to the underlying strength of the economy. In short, you take the economic poison pill now, post-election for two reasons: a) to avert an even greater economic disaster by punting the crash down the road and b) you adjust QE as necessary to buoy an economy that is finally going through hell-rehab but well on its way to growing eventual green shoots of a base for recovery. Like I said, Powell's initial instincts were correct to normalize the economy as fast and as humanly as possible. Help Joe and Jane stay afloat economically but get back to true capitalism, at least as it relates to a market economy, as soon as possible.

Sadly, politicians live in a world of less pain even at the cost of economic gain. That's where the United States is going with an economy that's already DOA and with capitalism long flushed down the dumper. Today's it's only and all about crony capitalism as the top gets richer and the bottom suffers horribly over a record and protracted period of time. 

It could have been otherwise. The days of soft economic landings are now nothing but a pipe dream.

Is It Really About The Trump Brand?

Not on your life. Trump is finally doing the inescapable not because it's right or even overdue, but because once again, it's all about him. Not his brand, not his business empire, HIM.

He knows that pretty well most of his court challenges have been laughed out of court. Trump also recognizes that it's futile to resist any longer. 

It has finally dawned on him that the history books are important -- that it's not in his interest to outshine only James Buchanan, if that's even remotely possible. 

It's not for the country or the Republican party. Nah, it's just about HIM, HIM, HIM. What else is new?

Same old, same old. Seriously, are any of you actually surprised? Not me.

Now, it's all about Ivanka and imposing her as nominee in 2024...to make Trump look good and keep him still in control of the party going forward.

Trump can't be king so he'll damn sure make sure that Republicans do his bidding, even after leaving office. So, Ivanka is the Trump extension.

You know Republicans. Not known generally speaking for a sliver of backbone. 

Like I said, we end where we began: it's all about Trump. Nothing else.

The Ivanka And Jared Plan?

Does it exist? I certainly think so for 2024. Remember Trump not so subtly gave away the plan in that Oval Office photo: a broadly smiling Ivanka sitting at The Resolute Desk with a grinning father on one side and Trudeau on the other. A Trump Family Dynasty, à la Bushes.

So, you've got the do or die crowd on one side, headed by himself with a dutiful Don Jr. and Eric in tow. For them, it's at maximum, all about the short game.

Then you've got the far more politically savvy Ivanka and Jared on the other, urging a Trump statesman-like concession -- not so much in the interests of political propriety or a calm and safe transition -- more like in their future best political interests: 2024 will be all about crossover and Ivanka will need every possible vote to win. Poor Pence. Hasn't even got a clue that the fix is already in in Republican circles. In short, what The Old Man Trump wants, The Old Man gets what with most elected Republicans being their usual spineless jellyfish. Right, Mitch? Right, Lindsey?

In short, Trump has already greased the skids for Ivanka and you can bet on it happening, unless she somehow ends up in the slammer post-Trump Administration, which yours truly regards as highly unlikely.

No Biden Economic Miracle Ahead.

Don't get me wrong, I'm way beyond thrilled that Trump was politically dispatched in this election. In fact, I quite literally thank God for that. 

But I'm certainly not expecting an economic miracle in the wake of Biden being sworn in as President of the United States.

I find myself of two minds on this: I favour increased federal government spending on those who've lost everything: businesses, homes, cars, savings and even their ability not to experience food insecurity. So, I welcome the incoming president who will reveal in office that he actually has a heart and sincere empathy for those presently in dire need.

However, the other part of me worries they're not biting the bullet and not taking our bad economic medicine in due course will only prolong and artificially accentuate the economic misery. 

In other words, the actual depression will be far longer and far more cruel, in individual terms, because of The Fed sugar high that quite deliberately keeps zombie companies afloat that should have long gone under, even before the onset of this pandemic. 

This is primarily about economic mitigation on the margins. It is absolutely not about true economic reforms as it relates to fiscal policy or the carte blanche left long ago by Bill Clinton to the financial services industry. They are all about Yes We Can, and they sure have to the economic detriment of the United States. All they care about is making money and spectacularly so, by the derivative poison pill, and quite deliberate rigging of the precious metals market, the commodities market generally and conversely, the artificial propping up of crude oil.

They are, for all intents and purposes criminal banksters with little to no corporate or personal accountability. In short, peanut fines come their way roughly one-tenth of what they make using their criminal strategies and surprise, surprise, no one goes to jail at the very top of these disreputable institutions, just like in 2008.

Governments, be they Republican or Democrat remain the willing handmaidens of the financial services industry. In short, they do their biding and that won't change even with Biden in the White House.

Crony-capitalism will continue to rule the roost as countless millions suffer in their wake. The revolving door from Wall Street into Treasury will also continue, much to the disadvantage of the American people. 

In fact, a new incoming administration changes precisely nothing with the Wall Street vampires continuing to call the tune.

No wonder they remain all smiles over at The Fed. Their corporate masters will still be running the show. Cry America, cry.

Putting On Your Man and Woman's Pants.

First off, I'll go with the proposition that most Americans, whether they happen to be Democrats, Republicans, Independents or something else believe in capitalism and electoral democracy. That's the first point you have in common.

Now to the second: you are or SHOULD BE AMERICANS FIRST, LAST AND ALWAYS. That means treating each other with respect and giving the other side a fair hearing. You don't have to necessarily agree or even change your perspective but all of you owe each other respect.

Thirdly, both sides have every right to go before the courts if they have political grievances. But they must be based on solid evidence, not staged videos!

Remember that the President of the United States doesn't even know how the courts work...no, he can't go straight to the SCOTUS. He has to go to Federal Court, Trial Division (District Court). If he wins there, then it's on to the Federal Court of Appeal (Circuit Court) and finally, if he wins again to the Supreme Court.

Look at Bush vs. Gore in 2000: Gore conceded to Bush and then took it back. It took three months before the case reached the SCOTUS and they ruled in Bush's favour, who became President.

Democrats didn't like it -- I didn't like it and I'm not even a citizen -- but they did the right thing and accepted it. That's Democracy.

We all know that Democrats and Republicans are not idiots or fools. Neither party wants to take this to civil war 2 and I don't blame them. Killing their fellow Americans, men, women and children is nobody's game. Thank God for that level of sanity across America. Up here in Canada, we fortunately never went down that route.

So...when the court challenges are settled one way or another, it will be up to both sides to put on their Man and Woman's Pants and accept the result.

The United States is a civilized country. That's why Americans basically have no other final option. Remember, God is watching. Please don't make him cry because of rivers of blood in the streets. America is far better than that, and all of you know it.

Trump Supporters: Society's Litmus Test Awaits.

Let me start off by saying that I've always gone out of my way not to bucket Trump supporters by automatically or reflexively labeling them as morons or simply unprincipled.

I've given them the benefit of the doubt that yes, they do indeed know right from wrong, they are honorable people who actually have ethics and are basically honest in their love of country.

You can have no greater quality than having the ability to put your country first and look out for the economic and political best interests of the American people.

Now, for all practical purposes,  the election is over. It's time for Trump supporters to face society's litmus test by stepping up in the national interest for what is right, decent, honest and downright American.

Donald Trump, post-election, has shown himself to be unprincipled, indecent, a liar and worst of all, a traitor not only to the rule of law but also to the democratic best interests of the American people.

That piece of shit is seemingly on television or on Twitter practically every day making baseless and uncorroborated allegations that he knows in the first place are both lies and factually groundless. There's no massive -- or even minimal -- election fraud taking place during this election. Trump is nothing more than a stinking liar who has zero pieces of evidence to backup his completely bogus claims of election fraud. In other words, that asshole is quite deliberately choosing to not put up nor shut up. In short, the man has absolutely no evidence of election fraud but he puts it out there anyway.

So, Trump supporters you have a choice: you can continue to support him and believe his lies or you can say enough is enough. Let all the votes be counted and may the chips fall where they may. 

The plain truth is simple enough: the last serious or widespread voter fraud occurred during Kennedy vs. Nixon. There's been nothing else proven since!

So, society's litmus test awaits: you can stand on the side of honesty and the facts, or you can stick with Trump and his lies. If you're a person of principles and ethics, you can show it now or do the opposite and continue to support Trump. It's put up or show time now. Will you help save American democracy and electoral integrity, or will you simply destroy your own country?

You can be Barry Goldwater, Hugh Scott and John Rhodes, or you can reduce yourself to the level of Donald J. Trump. Make your choice and then take a good long and hard look in the mirror. I hope you'll like what you see when all of this is over and done with because one way or another, you'll have to live with what you did, or didn't do, when America was in crisis and in need of your help.

Please don't fail the United States in her time of need. Be the best that you can be and stand up for what is right and decent in your country, or just be yet another Trump...

Boy Was I Ever Full Of Shit. LOL.

But Kinsella put it best: a win's a win. And in that vein looks like it's going to be like this:

BIDEN: 271

TRUMP: 262 (At best.)

Election 2020: Here it Is!

For sure, it will either be egg on my face time or champagne time.

Here you go:

Biden: 310
Trump: 228

Senate: 53 Democrats, 47 Republicans
House: Democrats +25 Seats than at Dissolution

Trump vs. Biden: It's Not That Simple.

Yes, you bet I'm still uneasy as hell. My stomach remains unsettled. Given this economy and the way that Trump has mishandled the COVID-19 emergency, at least in theory we should be heading for a monumental Biden blowout. It should be no contest for Biden but will it be?

Sure, the polls are, by and large, underrepresenting Trump's support: remember when Kinsella initially raised the shy Trump voter? Well, no question, that's still very much in play coupled with the fact that people want to be politically correct to pollsters and may not necessarily voice their support for Trump. 

Another key issue that shouldn't be is BlackLivesMatter -- but it is, not because of how protesters have behaved, mostly peacefully but because Trump has so skillfully distorted reality and lumped this sacred cause in with Antifa and other anarchist groups. No question, this will hurt Biden perhaps more than I realize at the polls. Unfortunately, it shows you that in politics, if you repeat a lie strongly and frequently enough it gets serious traction even if you've pretzeled the facts beyond sane recognition. In short, to some extent, as yet unmeasurable, Trump has been and is still entitled to his own facts and that's patently unacceptable but nonetheless reality.

Then there's the elephant in the room that no one wants to address: the WE, or if you prefer, TheWomen'sEquation: think back to Ferraro and Palin as VEEP candidates, and of course, Hillary's two presidential runs. Notice how they all lost, with their respective tickets going down in flames. Coincidence? I don't think so. People are finally starting to seriously address subtle racism in the United States but no one seemingly is looking into subtle sexism as it relates to a presidential party ticket. They should be. And believe me, it isn't only men that are enthusiastically into the latter.   

I'm very much for Biden but I'm quite frankly worried that a Biden-Harris ticket won't cut a lot of mustard in some voting areas across the United States. I'm still predicting a Biden win but am seriously concerned that this could end up as another Kennedy-Nixon race.

I don't see a Trump win but I'm also not prepared to discount it entirely. Nixon was serially lucky to have the so-called Silent Majority in his corner. God help America, not to mention all the rest of us across the globe, if Trump has even half of the support that Nixon had.

In short, I'm confident of a Biden win but still not sleeping that well at night. That's why I'm impatient to know the results yesterday because this is nothing short of emotional torture. Let the chips fall where they may and hopefully it will be in the best interests of all of the American people.

I HAVE TO BELIEVE IT!

Fact. The United States has been since the end of World War II the greatest nation on the face of the Earth. It also has traditionally been the greatest force for good on this planet. And yes, that not only happened under Democratic but also Republican Administrations and a bipartisan Congress.

So, don't believe President Donald J. Trump and his bullshit machine. The United States is right now far, far, far, greatest than Trump could ever hope to be. Trump's talk is a political con-artist's talk. Period.

Look around you -- see if you're suffering and keep an eye on all the others who have lost homes, jobs, cars and most especially lives during this COVID-19 pandemic.

Then judge Trump on how he handled the economy -- not the stock market -- where are the jobs that Trump was supposed to help create over the last four years? Why are so many people dead or dying because of COVID-19 under his watch?

Why did Trump promise as a candidate to reign in The Fed and the trillions in funny money that Trump let them dole out to corporations who either continued laying off or firing people while paying their top executives bonuses, stock options or buying back company stock in the market to make THEMSELVES richer which most of the American people became poorer and poorer as the middle-class got destroyed economically. That's Trump's true legacy: crumbs for the middle-class and the poor while Trump caters to the individual and corporate interests of the millionaire and billionaire class. Typical Donald J. Trump. The funny part is that any American is surprised after four years of Trump in office.

So, to my American friends and acquaintances I say: VOTE. Send a message. Remember that the United States is still as great as ever and the best is yet to come. That's why God gave America a special responsibility to serve as a worldwide force for the common good, peace, economic prosperity and geopolitical stability.

So, please, please, please, vote. Thank you.

First Higgs, Now Horgan.

Two elections, two majority governments. Trudeau must be so disappointed that the combined opposition did not bring his government down in the House, or maybe not?

After all, most of us said the Liberals actually wanted an election -- though Trudeau publicly denied that.

I still think the Trudeau Liberals lose next time. This Prime Minister is like Trump -- suffering from a serial scandal overdose -- he's not like Higgs and Horgan who are relatively scandal free.

So by all means Pablo, please, pretty please, engineer your government's own defeat, one way or another and let's take it to the voters!

I'm beyond confident. What about you and the rest of the Liberals? Surely, none of you have cold feet? Well, maybe Telford.

The Last Debate.

Well, no doubt about it, Trump is a much better liar than Biden. Does that mean he gets re-elected? 

God help the United States if that scumbag gets in again. 

I have to believe that the average American is still an honest and decent person.

That's why Biden MUST win. Please God, make it happen!

O'Toole Is Way Off The Mark.

So, O'Toole went to a UCP event with Kenney and praised Alberta's less restrictive approach to the health crisis and the maintaining of a more open provincial economy than is apparently the case in Ontario.

Trouble is that right now, Alberta1 has more COVID-19 cases than Ontario and is also behind Ontario as it relates to numbers of people tested.

That means that Ford's approach is not only the right one but it's working. Seemingly, O'Toole is the only federal party leader who doesn't get that.

Not exactly off to a flying public policy start.

1= per 100,000 population

Why I Call Them The Trump Suckers.

I've got to give it to Trump. He's beyond incredibly talented when it comes to pulling off the greatest political con job in American history. No doubt about that. I mean, this idea that he's for the people, for the little guy, when all his actions prove that he's only there to benefit his fellow crony-capitalists. Trillions and billions sent by The Fed to supposedly save companies and jobs. Total lunacy. Here's why: in round one of QE 2020, guess what the companies did with the dough? No, they did not preserve jobs. They did what phoney crooks always do, they bought back shares to increase the company share price and they gave each other executive bonuses with public money. In short, they made themselves even more rich, by leaps and bounds, at the expense of the middle-class and the poor. Meanwhile, Trump is handing out crumbs to the middle-class and poor who have already lost jobs, homes, cars and pretty much everything else.

That's why I call his middle to lower class supporters suckers because he and his minions royally fuck them time and again and they just smile and bend over even more...

It's beyond amazing how gullible some people can be. It defies the imagination when you think about it. Like I said, a great con man -- a faker to quote the late RBG -- a guy who wilfully pretends that the United States is in a super-V while everything around him is going to hell in a handbasket.

Jesus Christ, throw the bastard out. People are suffering beyond belief. Get someone in there who'll put people first, not the monied corporate interests that Trump so loves. Wake up people before it's too late. You're going down the fucking tubes precisely because of Trump and his so-called policies.

I Could Shit On Trump Six Ways From Sunday.

 And believe me, it would be a pleasure but nah, I'd rather limit myself to this: would God the father, his son and the others in heaven vote for Donald J. Trump? To ask the question is to answer it.

To my American readers, all I can say is please vote. The United States of America needs you now, more than ever. Thank you.

Why Biden Wins In Almost A Landslide?

Why Biden wins in almost a landslide?

In one sentence: it’s a turn the page on Trump election.

Thank You COVID-19 For Making Trump Batshit Crazy.

Too funny to see Trump scared shitless and desperate to find some way to sideline Biden. Thanks to the experimental cocktails, Trump has gone batshit crazy.

Imagine trying to get your opponent charged and thrown in jail. Ditto for Obama and Hillary.

Even a moron like Trump can see the writing on the wall -- the endgame where Biden wipes the floor with Trump.

It'll almost be a Biden landslide cause so many people want to see Trump gone from political office like yesterday. And Trump bloody well knows it.

To see the panic in his eyes is priceless. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy. 

Blow him away politically in the election. Make it so memorable that Trump will never forget. Thanks, Joe.

On His Best Day An Idiot.

What kind of a stupid fuck leaves hospital before he's even remotely on the upswing? What a doofus. And did you get a load of that stupid salute on the balcony? Who does that idiot think he is, Patton? Beyond pathetic.

Of course, no one except him will be even remotely surprised if Mr. Dumb Bell drops dead at The White House...

God and pretty much everyone else won't miss him if the jackass kicks off.

Trump Got Lucky And Didn't Drop Dead.

Well, it looks like Trump will still be the presidential candidate going into the election. In short, he got lucky, thanks to the experimental treatments that he was given. Without them, he was more than likely a goner. 

Now ask yourselves if this was in any manner, shape, or form, a life-changing event. Nope. No personal introspection as regards his conduct, his White House policy on masks or anything else for that matter. 

Trump remains Trump and won't change one iota going forward. The man is who he is and that's what the country is going to vote on. Love or hate him, it's going to be one hell of an interesting election night. Either he triumphs or it will be the Mother of all political repudiations. My dough is on the latter. 

They say never kick a dog when it's down. Too bad Trump never learned that. In any event, election 2020 is more than likely to be not only a humbling event for Trump but also a humiliating one.

This election is without a doubt a referendum on Donald Trump -- not necessarily on his policies, good, bad or indifferent but a vote on the person, the man.

If that's the case, expect Biden to win the presidency in almost a landslide. The country wanted the professional politicians out of the White House in 2016. Now, even after Trump's COVID-19 illness, most of the nation wants Trump gone as president and they want it to happen yesterday. Period, exclamation point. And it WILL happen because Trump finished off Trump in that poor excuse for a debate. Thanks man, for doing the United States a huge favour.

 

 

Jesus Christ!

I'll tell you right now that I won't sleep a wink tonight after that one. That Trump performance was barely human. It was way beyond scorched earth -- it was live and in colour a one-sided dog eat dog slug fest. There are no words in the dictionary to describe how despicable that was  -- it went way beyond the Atwater type question about the theoretical rape and murder of Kitty Dukakis and capital punishment. That was a knock-out blow. This is a DOA body blow but it is recoverable.

Remember that the Trump game plan is always about everyone else being weak and a liar, not just Justin Trudeau. Tonight, Biden held his own but that wasn't nearly good enough, so Biden looks weak, as the Republican narrative will go.

There are a lot of people out there who hate Trump's guts and are looking for any reason to hang their hat on to vote for Biden. Biden totally failed at that tonight. Make no mistake, Trump won zero votes tonight with that performance but that ain't what counts! What DOES, is that Biden probably didn't win a single vote tonight based on his performance.

The Trump war room has broken new ground tonight -- they made McCarthy look like a decent fellow. That piece of shit performance was way beyond pure gold.

In short, Biden has no choice but to show up for the other two debates and he has to be the biggest piece of shit ever seen on a debate stage to win. He has to outdo Trump and destroy him on stage. Otherwise, people stay at home and that fucker Trump wins again.

This is a new debate paradigm not worthy of any human being and Biden better master it nice and fast unless he wants to witness another four long, agonizing years of Trump in the White House.

Trump's war roomers are nothing short of human excrement but they know how to win and they will, unless Biden can royally best them at their filthy but brilliant game. Hopefully, God is with Biden. He'll need him, every step of the way.

When You've Got Them By The Balls Squeeze 'Em Until They Pop.

Look, no one can argue the point that the NDP is in this game to get results for people and everyone should be in favour of that. You may not like the cost or the nature of the program but putting people first, à la Bill Clinton, is never a bad idea.

Singh is pushing the Liberals on paid sick leave and has won at least the battle, if not the war. Trudeau's initial plan seemingly was only to cover those who were ill due to COVID-19 but the NDP has improved on that -- after negotiations it seems that the program will be far more encompassing -- but not exactly across the board. 

This is a hill that Singh was prepared to die on if a deal was not reached. We all know that the NDP is basically broke so it comes as no surprise to anyone that when the rubber hits the road that the party has no stomach for an election. With that said, Singh has a golden opportunity here to keep the Liberals' feet to the fire and to increase his demands going forward over the next three years. It's basically his job now to force the Liberals into turning this into a universal program, come hell or high water. 

What Singh has got now is apparently not global in nature nor is it permanent. That's precisely where Round Two of the ball squeezing should go. Otherwise, what's the point?

As a Red Tory, or a progressive Conservative, I could live with an NDP government. It certainly wouldn't be woe is me time and we'd all see what the NDP could deliver. Where I would have trouble would be if they turned into the next Trump -- ballooning deficits and debts to kingdom come -- that's where I'd get off the train and fast.

Then there's the other thing, you know, how polls react to Liberal-NDP deals that keep incumbent prime ministers in power. In this round, NDP fortunes were going up as the Liberals ticked down. You also saw the Conservatives gaining but that's beside the point for the purpose of this demonstration.

But the minute a deal is made, Liberals tend to rise while NDPers are subject to a drop. Put another way, why ditch the Liberals if the NDP is hell bent on acting almost like Liberals? So, there you go. In short, there comes a point where Singh and Company are either serious about being a contender for government, or they're not. That moment will ultimately come, as it almost always inevitably does in a minority parliament and the NDP will have to pull the plug. Maybe it'll be in their interest and perhaps not. But either way, when the people finally signal that they want Trudeau out, Singh and the NDP had better be on the right side of that trade. Otherwise...kaboom!

 

That Moron...

Rubber bullets kill -- and have done so for decades  -- killing both adults and children. 

At the very least he'll one day get to burn in Hell. How fitting.

Why It's 2008 All Over Again And Americans Get Screwed With Relish One More Time!

In four words: The Federal Reserve System.

Established by Congress, it's a hybrid entity with the Chair and Board of Governors appointed by the President. However, the twelve regional Fed chairs are selected by nationally-chartered commercial banks who hold stock in those banks.

In short, The Fed is, from the get-go, in a self-evident conflict of interest: it caters monetary policy in its constituent members' best interest. In English, it fashions monetary policy so as not to go against the financial interests of commercial, money-center and investment banks. Voilà!  

That's why its members can -- and literally do -- get away with financial murder. Greed is their only game and derivatives is their chosen instrument to maximize ill gotten gains.  In short, they're quite deliberately out to break the law, to game the system, to insure maximum profits for themselves and their shareholders, period.

And surprise, surprise, it wouldn't look good to send the top brass from member banks right into the slammer. So, no one heading these companies goes to jail, not in 2008 and certainly not now.

The Fed is the dutiful slave of its regional stockholders: namely, banks such as Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Bank of New York Mellon, and the topper, foreign bank entities such as HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Mizuho and Industrial & Commercial Bank of China.

That means the fix is in for the average American as we head down the road to a monster Depression, that will make 1929 look like a warmup. Crony capitalism is the state religion and individual Americans are its mostly silent and ever compliant suckers. All they have to say to people is, Enjoy The Ride!

Meanwhile, they and their ilk become filthy rich on the backs of your average Joe and Jane. That must truly be what Trump meant when he said he'd Make America Great Again. Right.

Why MacKay Blew It In Quebec.

Well, I imagine Peter already has a pretty good idea. If he doesn't, which would surprise me, he can always give me a call but I doubt he needs to. MacKay knows why he lost in this province.

Why Erin O'Toole Is The Only True Antidote.

First, let's put out up front my own personal biases: I left the Liberals over SNC and their obsession with corporate patronage that they called maintaining jobs -- you know SNC, the company that actually got its employees to circuit election laws so individual contributions could be made to the Liberals -- those same contributions were then reimbursed by the company. To say that SNC was in the Liberals' corner, cheerleading their every move, is the understatement of the decade. So, I'm once again, a Conservative member and supporter.

For this Prime Minister, respect for the rule of law and ethics requirements means absolutely nothing. This PM is all about influence and catering to the interests of those who support his government and do anything they can to uplift or maintain it.

Hello, SNC, hello WE, hello how many others? This is a Prime Minister who thinks it's normal not to put circuit breakers between his own family members and perhaps even himself and the interests of his stakeholders and allies. Before Justin Trudeau, how many other PMs were known to have looked the other way as family members, or perhaps even themselves, gained financially from third-party sources that were at least lobbyists or beneficiaries of government largesse? Mulroney's troubles started after he was no longer PM. Any others?

Think about it for a moment: imagine if you had inherited a reported twelve million dollars. What would that make you other than privileged and financially secure? Same thing for your close family members. Would there in any sense be a need for outside income, either obtained directly or indirectly? Would there be a need to stifle proactive disclosure and keep a lid on the can? I don't think so.

In the final analysis, the real problem lies between this Prime Minister's ears. He finds all of the above normal as it relates to the business of governing and properly representing the Canadian people. And that's precisely why this government has to go at the earliest opportunity. 

Erin O'Toole is a person of unquestioned integrity both in politics and out. He has dutifully served his country in the military where he learned the distinction between right and wrong. O'Toole is a man who has pledged an oath to uphold the finest traditions exhibited in our country. You won't see him looking out for questionable financial interests related either to himself or his own family members. O'Toole will do what his entire career has demonstrated he has always done: put Canada first instead of last. He will uphold and cherish the dignity that is afforded the office of Prime Minister of Canada, and most importantly, he will take a broom to the stinking excesses of present and past Liberal rule. 

It's time for someone who can allow Canadians to once again look themselves squarely in the face without having to question what their Prime Minister or his close family members have been up to. It's time to divorce Canada from Justin Trudeau and Erin O'Toole is the only person capable of carrying that out. May Canadians join his cause in droves and may the political gods give him their blessing come election day.

  

 

Bad Stats To Look Up...

United States of America:

58 Million unemployed

Capital One:

1.05 Billion

1.3 Billion

918 Million

Wells Fargo:

2.4 Billion

Bear Stearns.

Lehman Brothers.

Those Blithering Idiots! (Or If You Prefer, The Fed...)

Look, The Fed is enemy number one of sound monetary policy, while Congress and the President are enemy number one when it comes to rational fiscal policy. So, that's the setup. But it gets worse: this time it's different they'll tell you but, of course, it ain't -- just like it wasn't any different in 2000, 2008 or during the recent ill-fated marijuana stock run up and ultimate crash and burn.

You simply can't repudiate the business cycle: that means booms followed by busts, followed by booms, period. It also means that balance sheets count ahead of anything else: you know, those quaint metrics otherwise known as revenue, free cash flow, profits, earnings and dividends. That's what is supposed to drive markets, not artificial sugar high injections of counterfeit money made up out of thin air by The Fed. 

Point is, liquidity is lunacy in horrible fiscal times like today but liquidity makes markets go up until they don't and then it's crash time. Three things have propelled these markets to all-time highs: nightly cash injections, a zero interest rate policy by The Fed and deflation. That's what works, even when it shouldn't.

But sooner or later, fiscal and monetary insanity blows up in your face: Lebanon and now Turkey are but the latest examples where hyperinflation has taken hold, the currency is getting obliterated and money is pouring into the markets and gold purchases. That's always the pattern just before the big bust. Just ask Venezuela, Argentina or Zimbabwe. 

Dominos succumb to inflation, then to hyperinflation and more often than not stagflation. And so goes the currency. Watch out should the EU be next, not to mention the UK. 

Meanwhile, the unprecedented imbeciles at The Fed have a solution for everything: they want to move to increasing inflation in the economy even above a traditional Fed benchmark of 3% and guess what happens then? They can only do that by gradually raising interest rates and that will kill the stock market but good. (See the last round of Fed interest rate hikes that if you yawned, you missed it.)

Absolute monetary insanity. But remember that The Fed's specialty has always been killing off economic expansions so why should this time be any different? As sure as I'm breathing, it won't be.

 

  

Judgment Day: Tuesday, September 8, 2020.

 A lot of you think the presidential election will be decided on Tuesday, November 3, 2020 -- and you'd be wrong -- the presidency will be decided in the week of September 8 through 11 when both the Senate and the House of Representatives will be back in session.

The spoilers are respectively named Pelosi and McConnell. Either or both of them will sink their own prospective presidential candidate if they do not reach a funding extension agreement for Americans who are in financial difficulty and hurting badly in the wake of this unofficial Depression.

I get it: Pelosi wants to spend more than Trump wants and McConnell less. What else is new? It's not like Pelosi and McConnell just feel off the political turnip truck. They know that perception is the ultimate gateway to political reality and that means if both Houses can't make it in conference, then both chambers are done as dinner.

Those in pain, regardless of their political affiliation, will vote and will have punishment in mind for those who did not deliver for the American people during a period of severe economic hardship. So, get your asses in gear and make it happen otherwise Democrats lose the House and Republicans the Senate. That's cold, hard, political reality baby, as they throw the bums out in droves absent meaningful recovery legislation on this subject.

Meanwhile, Trump can't lose, provided he can expeditiously get the money out under Executive Orders recently signed by the President. People in dire financial straits don't spend their time arguing whether it's enough, etc. They take whatever they can get to help keep them afloat economically and they remember who sent them the money.

Of course, it's likely unconstitutional but no one gives a flying fuck about that. That's Washington, D.C. inside baseball. Put another way, if Congress can't get its act together and Trump manages to funnel the money out through Treasury, or some other source, then Trump beats Biden in November.

It's that clear. However, if Trump can't ultimately deliver, then Biden takes him to the cleaners in a heartbeat. Keep an eye on that ball. It'll tell you shortly all you need to know about who more than likely wins in November. 

 

 

South China Sea: The New Sarajevo.

Well, it's about time that the U.S. and Chinese Defense Secretaries have that long overdue chat -- you know, the one to avoid the kick off of WWIII in the South China Sea. They talked for an hour and a half and they better do much more if they want to avoid war. 

We've already witnessed China's military clashes with Indian troops, not to mention her repeatedly threatening Taiwan. They also had some unsettling words for Japan and the Philippines.

Meanwhile, the United States has been stoking the fire for years in Hong Kong, courtesy of the CIA, in hope of slowing detaching the SAR from the mainland. And who can forget about trade wars and economic sanctions. 

So, things aren't exactly peachy and they risk getting much worse in the short term. National security threats are the latest black swan, likely to replace the previous one, known as COVID-19.

Even Trudeau would have trouble getting this genie back into the bottle. As a result, we'll have to watch this situation evolve one day at a time -- and pray that events don't mindlessly spiral down as they did in 1914. 

Please keep peace in your prayers.

   

What COVID-19 Taught The World.

COVID-19 is above all else a human tragedy. It will leave in its eventual wake a legacy of suffering and death. That's its legacy for healthcare systems across the globe.

But far more ominously, it has also taught the world a horrific lesson, one based on the mass dispersion of biological agents. With COVID-19, we saw it play out on an international scale with deadly consequences. Like with MERS and SARS, we saw Corona viruses in action accompanied by deaths.

However, world powers also found themselves in the midst of a strategic opportunity to war-game the release of bio-agents in preparation to taking it to the next level.

In English, it now becomes a reasonable assumption that the next World War will be kicked off by way of biological terrorism perpetrated by nation-states. That's a solid, effective, low-risk maximum first strike. In effect, COVID-19 has been the Mother of All Non-Intentional Test Runs with countries such as China, Russia, the United States and Israel paying close attention to this dry run, if you will.

I'm not among those who see the origin of COVID-19 entirely in nature, given its failure to dissipate in warm-weather climates but nor am I a proponent of the deliberate release theory. Like American intelligence agencies, I strongly suspect a sloppy and accidental release from the Level 4 Wuhan lab. It goes without saying that I don't regard Chinese COVID-19 statistics as entirely legitimate or wholly reliable. I think we can safely assume that the Chinese death rate is at least multiples of what has been officially reported.

To conclude, I hope that the better angels of human nature ultimately prevail in this tense and seriously deteriorating geopolitical environment. Otherwise, God help us all.

  

Is This Still Harper's Party?

All will be revealed later this month when we choose our next leader. What is the membership thinking and will they still take their cues from Harper?

Is Harper genuinely neutral or does he have skin in the game? Conversely, is one candidate the next Wynne, lining up impressive and unexpected support as a capital one deal-maker? Is the fix already in on your second choice?

We'll find out soon enough. What I want is a leader finally capable of wiping the floor with this Prime Minister. What about you?

Remember that winning is not only everything, it's the only thing. The rest is for serial political losers.

WE: Trudeau In Three Sentences.

Apply the brakes on giving WE the contract because of family connections and so-called perceptions;

Don't tell cabinet about alleged WE payments to Mom, Bro and Wifey;

Absolutely no need for PM or Morneau to recuse themselves as cabinet "decides."

NASDAQ: FAANG Stocks?

I wonder about the effect of the downdraft rotation where The Dow is no longer leading the market down while the S&P alternates between up and down and the NASDAQ steadily moves higher. 

Suddenly, the NASDAQ is on the way down with the FAANG stocks leading the way. Admittedly, you could hardly call this a trend -- two day runs down or longer do not a negative tech market make. But you have to worry about earnings and reports that a plurality of NASDAQ stocks will report, or have already reported, negative quarterly earnings. That's a reason for at least a pause in bullish investor psychology.

For my part, I expect the mother of all crashes to come within a matter of a few weeks, if not next week. I don't base it on the traditional business cycle of boom and bust. Rather, I see The Fed as the ultimate doom machine for these markets. Here's why: The Fed's counterfeiting cannot prevent a severe recession, or more likely, an unheard of Depression, because inventing liquidity and being both the buyer and seller of last resort of anything and everything is quite simply financial idiocy. You saw it first with the voluntary purchase of junk bonds and other non-investment grade products. Absolute insanity. The next clue came when The Fed tried to repeatedly taper -- that had the same effect as taking away a pacemaker from an otherwise dying patient who suffers from chronic cardiac insufficiency. You turn it off and the patient likely dies. And so it was with markets -- tapering immediately led to market cardiac arrest and investor panic. That clearly showed that QE to Infinity is exactly that: it has to go on forever otherwise markets tank to unprecedented levels to accurately reflect the true nature of the DOA American economy. 

The Fed did not follow the old adage of being careful of what it wished for and now they are seemingly committed in perpetuity to artificially holding up markets that would otherwise have already been destroyed ages ago.

Like in 2008, Fed intervention lessened the severity of the crisis and put off the eventual date for a considerable market collapse, which ultimately came in spite of their various interventions in capital markets. In 2020, multi-trillion dollar infusions will have exactly the same effect until they don't. Because of the unprecedented monetary levels of Fed intervention, not only will the crash be delayed but its energy when it finally comes will have been pent up and considerably magnified. So, when it inevitably hits, it likely hits with ten times the force it normally would have had but for QE, MMT and the widely expected Yield-curve control.

Despite the monetary lunacy, the markets have reasonably held the line subsequent to the March lows. That's because Fed policy has encouraged increased deflation. But ominous signs lie ahead with The Fed purportedly prepared to allow inflation to push ahead of its traditional core inflation target of 2%. That's called The Fed playing Russian roulette with the markets and the economy. If inflation begins to take off, it will be game over for this economy already on life support. First will come stagflation and ultimately hyperinflation should The Fed lose total control.

All of this to say that the FAANGs are probably the canaries in the coal mine and NASDAQ earnings the big bad wolf approaching the hen house. In my book, now is the time to get out fast if you haven't already done so. Pray that stock markets don't drop 70-80% because if it comes, or should I say when it comes, the bear market could very well be of that order of magnitude.

 

Chagger: Is It Just Me?

Anyone else notice that Chagger is the unfortunate Liberal MP for W-A-T-E-R-L-O-O ? Interesting. Are the WEGovernmentTM about to throw their unsuspecting Junior Minister under the bus? Of course they are! They will do anything -- and I mean absolutely anything -- to save this Prime Minister's hide, not to mention Morneau's.

You know what they say about selling (or in this case, buying) your Mother to hold onto power. That's quite literally, the only thing that matters to them other than finding out which Liberals actually sent the WE manilas to both CBC and The RedStar. Good luck with that.

So, the PMO is shaking in their boots as successive polls come out showing the Liberals on a down slope in the wake of the WE iceberg. Most of it remains below the water line so this is definitely not the beginning of the end but more like the end of the beginning.  Keep your eyes peeled for subsequent rounds cause they are coming.

When Body Language Says It All.

I can't wait for Morneau, Trudeau et al. to hit the little screen. Warren Kinsella reminded us how you can tell if an ad will hit a home run by watching it first and several times more without the audio.

I'm going to suggest a variation on that technique: watch the Finance Committee statements and answers to questions by carefully scrutinizing body language. It will tell you if the witness is sincere, honest, credible and even repentent. Under the worst of circumstances, it will telegraph an ongoing snow job.

By now, you all know the plot and its ins and outs. Morneau, Trudeau and Telford will be in the process of hand bailing RMS Titanic so don't expect a miracle from them.

Or if it's an unmitigated disaster, expect to see in quick succession Margaret, Alexandre and Sophie before the Committee. 

There is an out for Trudeau in all this but his sense of entitlement and arrogance should insure that they never come up with it.

So, watch them sweat and enjoy. They made their WE bed and now let them lie in it.    

Bye, Bye, Liberals: You're Just Another Harper Government.

People will view this post's title and think What? Some won't like a direct illustration of same while others won't like a current CPC member writing it. T-O-U-G-H toenails as we used to say.

This isn't about competence or growing into the big job. This is all about what you do with power -- how much you push the envelope -- or even worse, going so far as to quite deliberately break the political consensus rubber band. That's precisely why Harper lost in 2015 and why Trudeau will lose now.

By and large, Canadian voters don't like or feel comfortable with either deep self-inflicted lurches to the right or left. They tend to like that happy medium, you know, the Canadian thing. But that didn't stop Harper, so they threw him out on his ass. I give Harper credit though on election night for publicly acknowledging the loss and putting the entire responsibility for it on himself, where it rightly belonged. In my early CPC days I continually pushed for a moderate-reflecting potential majority. By the time I left in 2009, I frankly was down to not giving a shit.

Now, let's move on to Trudeau who I supported in 2015. I expected a majority government and that's what we got. But for the record, Trudeau turned out to be no Harper, sometimes good and other times not.

Like Harper, Trudeau lowered his head and began bulldozing. This Prime Minister saw absolutely nothing wrong with how HE handled SNC and it's more of that now. His family's nepotism par ricochet is seemingly just fine by him. It's blinders time galore, so what else is new? Trudeau is by no means your average Canadian -- he remains entitled have been born with a silver spoon in his mouth -- in the patronage cesspool commonly known as Ottawa.

The guy represents Papineau and somehow thinks this will wash over in the blink of an eye.  Guess he has no clue what Québécois and Canadians really think. He's about to find out though, in spades.

Fortunately, we can all count on the next election to properly cleanse this unseemly affair. 

All Is Right In The Financial World.

Not. Welcome to nutcase heaven: 51 million unemployed, The Fed's balance sheet well on its way to 8 trillion with apprehension quickly setting in after only four days of tapering -- so guess what, that's the end of tapering. But The Fed can't keep it up forever. 

Now, let's move to market bifurcation: NASDAQ keeps going higher with lesser and lesser daily point gains, along with The S&P, while The Dow sinks. That means The Fed's next trick pony will be the inevitability of buying stocks directly. Titanic lifeboat time!

Meanwhile, investment and money-centre banks are already insolvent with bank stocks taking on only a 35% down draft  that has Dimon worried and unusually fortright.

Then this gem: 33% of companies filing for bankruptcy protection handed out bonuses to those sub-par executives and management...

But not to worry, while all other stock indices tanked in 2000, 2008 and 2020, the NASDAQ continued to rise -- until it finally didn't. I'm long out so for those of you still in, enjoy the ride until you don't. A 70 to 80% drop is not far off. Greed is winning out over fear in a foolishly complacent stock market. In the end, panic beats 'em both and is presently warming up in the Green Room.

As a result, what kind of a recovery are we in for? It's called an L. Sorry about that, but that's reality.

  

  

Sorry About That Sugar High.

Unfortunately, a lot of you wouldn't know the NASDAQ bubble if it smacked you in the face. It makes daily new highs while the S&P and Dow make far lesser gains. What does it mean? Frankly, that Tech will be the last pillar to come down and ultimately roll over.

The economy is dead, period. Capitalist markets are all about income statements, balance sheets, debt reduction or elimination, growing revenue and solid and increasing quarterly profits. We have none of that now. 

I don't know which is worse, a Fed that prolongs a sugar high by printing counterfeit money thus delaying the inevitable and ensuring the increased ferocity of the downturn, or a Fed that finally largely pulls the plug now what with successive days of tapering -- bye, bye, nightly injections of countless trillions to prop up already insolvent banks in a repeat of 2008. Either way, large cap and dividend stockholders are about to lose big time.

So again, get the hell out of the fucking markets and thank God for the profits made. You did that during a market cycle with wildly and totally unacceptable risk for large-caps. Remember that only greedy pigs hold on to the bitter end and get burnt every single time.

The Fed has finally bowed down to reflect reality and is serially tapering the sugar high with each passing day. That will take the market down and it will make 1929 look like a Sunday picnic. Foolish speculators going forward have to be right every single trading day but the crash inspired by disastrous debt, deficits and an inexistent economy only has to hit a home run once.

We're talking Depression and it's coming far sooner than later. Only the incredibly economically deluded can't see it on the horizon.

      

It's Not About Margaret or Alexandre Trudeau.

This is, to put it mildly, manna from heaven.

Political pros will immediately recognize that it's not about the WE Charity and Margaret or Alexandre per se, rather it's all about Justin Trudeau and his performance as Prime Minister. No one cares about speaking fees paid to private individuals -- even when allegedly paid to members of Trudeau's own family.

What this is really about is about summer jobs for students and the political necessity in this PMO's eyes of sole-sourcing a contract to a charity that is at the very least, sympathetic to this government. This Prime Minister admits that he did not recuse himself when cabinet made the decision -- pretty good chance as well that cabinet was not informed about the speaking fees allegedly paid over time.

Then there's the matter of the PM defending the contract and seemingly indicating that WE was the only organization suitably qualified to properly handle the manner. And then, after the climb down, suddenly public servants were sufficiently competent to properly administer this program...

If opposition parties correctly play this out, the ballot question won't be about COVID-19 or even economic issues. Rather it will be all about Justin Trudeau's alleged possession of political judgment and elementary common sense.

If we've learned anything about this government in the wake of India, SNC-Lavalin and other controversial issues, it's that this Prime Minister doesn't even remotely have a feel for these things, even after being at the helm since 2015.

In short, it's all about judgment, you know, the kind that Trudeau hasn't got and apparently wouldn't recognize if it tapped him on the shoulder.

By all means, please bring on the election! 

Whom Do You Believe: Peter Or Erin?

Peter and his people are confident that they have the MOJO while Erin and his team claim to be ahead, at least in endorsements.

Nice window dressing but the truth lies in your average CPC member's gut. It's up to each of you to feel it out and then make a decision. I can tell you one thing for certain: this race is already polarized with undecideds likely being few and far between.

Some will vote for ideas, other principles but it's a pretty safe bet most will make a first choice based on who can win against Trudeau.

You know where I always come from: namely, that winning isn't everything but that it's the only thing. IMHO, MacKay has righted the ship and has the wind at his back.

I think MacKay has what it takes to beat Trudeau. I could be wrong but I don't see O'Toole being able to pull it off, not at all.

But your decision is between you, your conscience and your God. All I ask of each and every one of you is that you vote -- and not often! LOL.

Thank you.

CPC: Those Nightly Phone Calls.

Right up front: I'm supporting MacKay and that won't waver. However, local Conservatives asked me to at least hear out other candidates. I was of two minds about this: I didn't then and I still now don't think it's appropriate for someone to do a meet and greet with a candidate when you're already spoken for. As a result, I did not attend an O'Toole event held in Quebec City.

However, in the interest of fair play, I did listen in on O'Toole and Lewis video or phone calls just to hear them out. I wasn't there to spy with my little eye and evidently did not pass on codes or material to any other candidate. 

Political calls are a strange thing: they go best if there isn't too my fawning or deliberate sucking up, either by other MPs, former party candidates or those with hopes of eventual "prospects". So, please keep that to a minimum for the benefit of viewers and listeners.

Another rookie mistake is, of course, anointing your candidate as the next leader or future PM. That smacks of rank amateurs running the show, at least on these calls.

But the one that blew me away was one hell of a whopper: did I hear correctly that one candidate actually claimed to have two thousand, or thereabouts CPC members on the French-language call? Do I need hearing aids, or perhaps that can't possibly be right?

There again, would any campaign actually be foolish enough to dick around with the numbers on the call and then try to pass it off as Gospel? I hope not. You know, when they start getting proactively defensive and accusatory towards the tail end, you get the sense that desperation has started to sink in. You get the idea that the other guy, or gal, already knows they haven't got the numbers and have no reasonable shot of finally getting there. Given all of that, would you really go even further and inflate your call numbers in Quebec -- or anywhere else -- or am I simply barking up the wrong tree? 

In any event, things are starting to really shake out. I'm not here to make bold predictions in favour of my candidate or anyone else. But I will say that I'm at peace with our campaign. 

So, it's now up to each and every one of you who happen to be members. May you use your best political instincts, your honed judgment and your highest intellect in making your choice. But above all else, ask yourselves who can win -- and then go with that person as your first choice.  

Can Justin Lose?

Depends on whether you go for conventional wisdom and easy answers -- you know, those same people who fall for the BS otherwise known as stock market wisdom: in both cases, up, up, up and away in my beautiful balloon!

Under such a scenario, Justin is Superman having bought off as many Canadians as possible, along with their dogs and cats. Nice move to also bribe the financially-stressed media into even more favorable and preferably brain-dead coverage. Justin can't lose they'll tell you.

But I'm with Martin: Justin is Prime Minister until he ain't. And that so-called miracle can happen in any number of ways:

Trudeau can call an election while the CPC is still stuck with Scheer;

Trudeau can go to the voters before MacKay's leadership slippers have even become warm;

Trudeau can drop the writ after releasing the CRA hounds, albeit prematurely, on the entitled CERB recipients;

Trudeau can simply #FuckThingsUpRoyally and not realize it, due to Liberal blinders, etc.

So, MacKay has to hold his course right through the leadership selection process and beyond. Peter has to do a steady Eddy and keep it relatively moderate both in tone and action.

Yes, for now, Team MacKay is fortunate to have the mojo and is sentient enough not to deliberately or otherwise blow it.

These are finally good days for Peter and Company. The point is to turn them into exceptionally bad days for Justin and his government.

Something tells me that Peter is perhaps for some, surprisingly up to that challenge.

But in the final analysis, it remains within the prerogative of the political Gods. 

Pray For The Economic Dead And The Undead Will Pray For You.

The worst Depression in United States history is on the way -- and not far off -- it's only a matter of months at most. But the market continues to go up, almost exclusively propelled by retail investors...

high net worth individuals, institutions and hedge funds are long out of this market. What we have now folks is a rising ponzi stock market rising only due to the inexperienced and naïve with Robinhood accounts. God help them if their trades and accounts freeze when the shit hits the fan and they're suddenly desperate to get out. You know, in times when buying that new judge authorized issue of a given stock happens right after the company went into bankruptcy protection and speculators holding the old stock were wiped out. No bankruptcy judge has ever done anything close to that before. That judge must be a disciple of The Fed. Poor him, and more importantly, poor us! 

Some of you think I'm full of shit, as usual? Well, maybe not. Reality tells you that the investment and money center banks are already insolvent, in business only because of The Fed counterfeit money printing press. Did they learn their lesson since 2008? Please. They once again ruined the financial system with garbage derivatives and other leveraged products. They used cash injections for share buy-backs to artificially prop up their stock price even as earnings and profits dropped. America's top banks are a house of cards and a strong wind is coming.

Last September's Repo Crisis was the first attempt to stave off a large bank-wide collapse and it worked by delaying the inevitable. Then, The Fed started buying treasuries and mortgage-backed securities. That also worked but wasn't enough to break the declining economic cycle so The Fed moved to purchasing Bond ETFs and guess what, an economic turnaround did not happen. So...……...now The Fed is buying high yield bonds (translation: junk bonds) to keep already bankrupt zombie companies afloat. And that doofus move isn't and won't do the trick either.

Like the old saying goes in data: garbage in, garbage out. That tells you all you need to know to confirm that the Depression is right on our door step. The Fed is the only one buying treasuries from the banks, China and Japan have taken a pass and now we're waiting for the other shoe to drop when they likely massively dump treasuries.

Add to that U.S. dollar weakness and an eventual loss of its status as the Petrodollar and economic ruin is ahead. Sure, the American buck will remain as the reserve currency for worldwide economic exchange but many alternatives are already being examined as an alternative.

Unemployment is now likely at 20%, they claim it's only 13% while the official figure for the number of unemployed is 46 million, with everyone already knowing that it's much higher than that. Retail sales in April were down 17% and meat-price inflation increases are up only 40%.

That means the worse is yet to come so brace yourselves and get out of stocks accordingly. If you have profits, take 'em now and if you have any knowledge or expertise in gold or silver stocks, then take a long, hard look at them pronto. Stock markets are probably the biggest bubble in American history. And because a bubble is always a bubble, gold and silver stocks will without a doubt end up doing exactly the same with people losing their shirts.

Precious metal stocks means doing a lot of homework for your likely profits but know when the end is near and that will no doubt come right after base metal stocks are on their way to the moon. That, without a doubt will be the end. Then it'll be time to get back into large cap and dividend growth and momentum stocks. Meanwhile, value stocks will be worth looking at right after the upcoming crash and within months of it. But with value stocks, mispriced assets not properly related to solid fundamentals, or recognized by markets, is always king. Free cash flow, dividends and most importantly, profits will be the rule of the day. In closing, the best of luck to all in these markets. 

MacKay vs. O'Toole.

I won't bullshit you. Before these debates, I was worried like hell -- wondering how successful Team O'Toole might already have been in sewing up second choice support. It's quite frankly rather comical to see either O'Toole or MacKay trying to make a play for social conservatives when they each have so little in common with them in the first place.

But if the debates taught me anything it's that O'Toole has that deer in the headlights look. He now comes across as panicking and desperate to seal the social conservative deal. That makes me think that he hasn't got the numbers to prevent MacKay from reaching the holy grail of 50% + 1 on the first ballot.

People say MacKay did well in both debates but I don't see it that way: that tit for tat dive-bombing between a no-holes-barred O'Toole and give as good as he got MacKay came off as a complete dud in Quebec. It went over really badly in this province. In short, from a Quebec perspective, it was an unmitigated disaster that buoyed both Liberal and Bloc spirits. 

But Thank the Lord for last night. I'm pretty much of the same view as Martin and Ivison. MacKay came to life, as if reborn, and wiped the floor with the unfortunate O'Toole. So, Peter by virtue only of his own performance has finally got his mojo back. It's about time. However, I'm not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. All I ask God is that MacKay's new upward trajectory continue uninterrupted right up to the ballot counting.   

Peter Rocked Tonight!

Remember when I said that Peter was at his best when he did his own thinking? Well, MacKay proved that on his feet tonight.

Boy, Peter's really firing on all thrusters. May that continue.

I won't be telling any of you how to vote. But I know who I'm supporting in this race, the guy who's ready for the job on Day One.

MacKay: CPC English Debate.

MacKay must hit O'Toole nuclear-hard on breaking Harper cabinet solidarity on the F-35. That took unmitigated gall for Erin to take Peter on in that way. Talk about a Mother of All Hypocrisy Move!

CPC French Debate: O'Toole and the F-35. What?

First off, my twin biases: I'm a MacKay supporter. I'm also resolutely opposed to buying the  F-35 Lightning II, for budgetary reasons.

Here's my spin. I found Erin and Peter's French to be about equal with each candidate making fundamental mistakes. O'Toole's is a bit better.

Normally, I have no problem with a leadership candidate taking on his rival's handling of his or her portfolio. But I found it curious, to say the least, to see O'Toole going after MacKay over the F-35 and the Conservative government's failure to buy that fighter.

Come again? Erin was Veterans Affairs Minister in 2015 -- was he on the record during the Harper government criticizing the government's progress in advancing the selection process for a new fighter? I can't remember O'Toole taking the government to task over the delays. 

The next question is whether he maintained cabinet solidarity on the issue until the government was defeated? My impression is that he did. Finally, around the cabinet table, or in caucus, did Erin raise the  F-35 matter and criticize Defence Minister MacKay's performance on the file? Not to my knowledge. I never heard any talk that he took Peter on privately either in cabinet or during caucus meetings.

So that one was a bit strange. Sort of straight out of the Twilight Zone.

COVID-19 Redux?

I honestly don't think so. That's all you hear about a so-called second wave come this fall. But that's not how I see it: my sneaking suspicion is that it will go straight through to the end of the year with absolutely no let up. 

A while back, they talked of thirty strains -- God only knows how many there are now. And forget about a highly effective vaccine. Mutation will see to that, no matter how many billions they spend coming up with it.

What we've got now IS the new normal. Might as well try to get used to it. 

ZeroHedge Nails It.

Just call it TheFedBubble. Over at ZeroHedge, they refer to it as TheCentralBankBubble but either way, we would be in a full-on Depression but for central bank intervention.

Sure, The Fed will be able to put off the inevitable but that isn't necessarily good. In 2008, Fed action seemingly mitigated what would have otherwise been at least a far more serious recession.

That's possible again this time as Powell and Company no doubt believe but that's insane because it defies elementary common sense: the scale of The Fed's intervention proves without a doubt that economic problems are not only unprecedented but beyond remedy. That's precisely why The Fed has to keep pumping the funny money because thus far, no amount has been sufficient to solve the myriad of economic problems -- and no amount ever will.

Fed tapering is no longer possible so at some point they'll have to go cold turkey and that's when all hell will break loose.

The Fed is clueless that it would have been better to cut and run far earlier in this cycle rather than to prolong counterfeiting. By doing so, they've only compounded the crisis beyond all measure and made an already horrible economic situation infinitely worse.

We aren't at 2008 debt and deficit levels. 2020 debt and deficits are way beyond horrific, so The Fed did us no favours by mindlessly digging in.

So, like every other bubble before this one, it will ultimately pop and economic conditions will be more serious than anything ever seen before, negatively speaking. This coming Depression will make 1929 look like a walk in the park.

Fools, who know nothing and have learned nothing. Typical central bankers, Volcker excepted.

This Time Is Different !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No, it isn't. What people don't get is that QE to Infinity is only a stopgap measure that artificially puts off reality and temporarily buoys an already troubled stock and bond market. In other words, at its best, QE and MMT can only delay the harsh economic inevitability. These are stock markets up only because of five stocks, on very low volumes. Institutional investors are long gone as are the Buffets of this world. In fact, Buffet hasn't bought a stock since 2019. So, essentially, it's a market of suckers -- buying the dips -- the same suckers who back in 2008 were left holding the bag. They're called retail investors and for the most part are no more savvy about markets than your dog or cat. Like the old story goes: Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. got out of the markets right after the shoe-shine guy got in in 29.

QE, at least initially is a deflationary mechanism as money is continually counterfeited by The Fed to address issues other than record debt and deficit spending. That leads to eventual tax increases on individuals to address budgetary issues and thus personal spending power is reduced over time. And since money printing can't go on forever, the predictable end result is an economy and market scenario where both finally tank.

Where QE puts us on a transition to inflation occurs when the economy is contracting, businesses are slowing down, profits are reduced and sales are decreasing. That leads to rises in business input costs and increases in prices of goods being produced by industry. THAT'S when we start to see the transition to an inflationary environment. Just look at your grocery bill, especially the prices of meats and other items imported from afar. No question, that's exactly where we are now in 2020.

The next logical phase is, of course, hyperinflation where monthly inflation is at least over 50% percent per month. In that environment, the purchasing power of the currency reduces exponentially and economic contraction soars. First, PMI falls off a cliff, then the GDP but other areas also plummet: most notably, consumer spending, housing, retail sales, opening of new businesses and building permits.

Right now, we're seeing people turning into savers and trying to pay off some of their debt. The consumer is scared -- many of them either laid off or already out of a job. Small businesses, the heart of the economy who employ 97% are on life-support or going out of business. Meanwhile, real unemployment, depending on which number you believe is actually 20-40%, if you include those who have stopped looking for work or for who unemployment benefits have already run out. No wonder someone monkeyed with the American unemployment rate for May. As a result, eventual hyperinflation will likely transform into stagflation with unemployed ultimately passing Great Depression level numbers.

Now, why is the stock market going up in extraordinarily bad economic times? Sure, QE is playing a role but it's all about a contracting economy and a currency on the downslope. The more the economy shrinks and the dollar goes down, the more the stock market will go up. Ditto for the bond market, more specifically the 10 Year Treasury. That's precisely what hyperinflation does to markets. It's normal. Individuals make the fatal mistake of trying to use stock markets as an inflation hedge and eventual ATM, so money goes pouring into markets.

Just look at Venezuela where the stock market took off in 2017 and went up 476,000% in September of 2018, then crashed and went up again in late 2018, right through 2020, while the economy battled persistent hyperinflation. HI was pegged at 4,000% in 2017, 66,000 % in 2018 and 20,000% last year and is roughly at 15,000% in 2020. The value of the domestic currency basically went to zero and the ten-year bond yield rose almost to 14% in 2015-16, immediately prior to that crisis. Predictably, bonds then fell off a cliff when the stock market dived in 2018, with the 10 Year Bond flooring at 10% to this day. But risk averse yield seekers simply aren't there, as government bonds are not seen as even remotely secure.

Remember crash and burn because that's our only possible economic future. Again, capitalists can't possibly repudiate the conditions of the business cycle. And retail investors are what they have always been, the most prone to turning into sacrificial lemmings.