Remembering When the Madness Began

Baiting The Left Democrats The Libranos The Tolerant Left Vast Right Wing Conspiracy Wuhan Flu 16 Comments

I’ll never forget the sequence of events that occurred in mid-March 2020. On Friday, March 13th, I was living in San Francisco and went out for dinner with 3 friends in the Mission District. One of them started talking about how she was working as the personal assistant to a virologist and that he was preparing for a cataclysmic change in our society next week. Huh? Here we were, enjoying a nice meal under normal circumstances, no different than all of the others I had enjoyed all of my life and everything was about to change? Surely, my friend must be exaggerating for dramatic effect?!

As the news over that weekend evolved, things appeared to be getting more dire. Then on the Monday, Mayor London Breed issued this pronouncement:


^^^ For extra fun, open the comments and search for the word “allowed”.

The next day, everything changed.

London Breed’s declaration was the first domino, of many, to fall. It started a cascading devolution into insanity for arguably the next two years. Even today, we are still feeling the after effects of what happened back then. Some of us have moved on but so much damage has been done. Some people are still walking around with masks & gloves on. Trust in public health has completely evaporated amongst everyone with a reasonably skeptical perception. Those in power who lied back then, and then continued to over & over, have, for the most part, refused to admit they did anything wrong and are mostly still in power.

The world has definitely changed … and not in a good way.

Left Coast economics

entitlement generation Great Moments In Socialism 7 Comments

Who needs surpluses when you’ve got votes to buy? You would think with the recent crappy news coming out of financial markets, any government with an actual budgetary surplus would at least consider paying down some debt, but not in BC anyway. In any event, it would be helpful if the government at least knew where the money was going.

In a recent column, CHEK News legislative correspondent Rob Shaw wrote that the B.C. Legislature was approving spending items so quickly that MLAs often couldn’t explain where the money was going or why it was needed. 

Shaw wrote when Agriculture Minister Pam Alexis was queried on why she had requested an extra $111 million in spending, she replied by reading her own press release.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

More Money Than Brains War On Agriculture 22 Comments

Stephen Thompson (letter to the editor) in Ontario Farmer: Farmland bubble likely to burst

At this time of year farmers become giddy when talking about what people are paying to buy farmland, especially in recent years when prices have skyrocketed.

Agriculture’s talking heads try to normalize the situation by claiming things are fine, even as the excesses become ever-increasingly wretched. Particularly cringe-worthy is the claim by some lenders that they don’t have a problem because their farm borrowers have oodles of equity.

Unfortunately, this type of claim ignores the reality that this isn’t earned equity, but speculative equity based on land prices that aren’t tethered in any meaningful way to any earnings component for that land.

Astute investors pay heed to two long-standing investment ‘Bibles’ as well as one relatively recent book and even a movie. The first is the 1841 book by Scottish author Charles Mackay -‘Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds’ the second is the 1949 book – ‘The Intelligent Investor’ by legendary Wall Street investor Benjamin Graham; the third, published initially in 2000, is ‘Irrational Exuberance’ by US economist Robert Shiller and the movie is ‘The Big Short’ released in late 2015.

The common thread of all four references is the emphasis on the danger of investing in something that has either no earnings potential or an earnings profile completely estranged from the market price of that asset, as is presently the case with farmland.

Another common denominator is the significance of the fear of missing out, also a large part of today’s farmland price scenario.

That we are in the midst of a farmland speculative bubble is not open for debate or even discussion. In addition to having thrown any sort of price/earnings multiple restraint out the window, we farmers fundamentally believe “this time it’s different” (it never is) and we believe the talking heads when we should be paying no attention to them at all. The result, in too many cases, is that farmland is being bought as a ‘trophy’ simply because we can.

The worst part about being on the other side of the psychological mania inherent in any investment bubble, as was well demonstrated in the Big Short, is that you can be wrong for years and be widely ridiculed for being wrong, but bubbles always eventually burst or deflate rapidly when least expected.

Via Ian Cummings

China’s Chew Toy

Chinada Claws of the Panda 27 Comments

Globe and Mail- China’s Vancouver consulate interfered in 2022 municipal election, according to CSIS

A Jan. 10, 2022, Canadian Security and Intelligence Service report viewed by The Globe and Mail outlines how China’s then-consul-general, Tong Xiaoling, discussed mentoring – or as the report quoted her, “grooming” – Chinese-Canadian municipal politicians for higher office to advance Beijing’s interests.

Thursday On Turtle Island

Turtle Island 15 Comments

Biden’s America:  Men on International Women’s Day.  Debunking the myths of gay parents.  The Babylon Bee Awards.  Kellogg pledged money for racial division.  Apparently Biden cares more about ducks than Indians.  The Armed Resistance Unit.  Your morning meme.  Bonus meme.

Trudeau’s Canada:  Stories you will find at the CBC.  Life in socialist B.C.  Life at a socialist B.C. university.  Today Climate Justin burns jet fuel to diverse Toronto.  The CBC will not take questions.  Allegations of election corruption is disinformation.  The PM’s new advisor.

History Lesson:  With Neil Oliver.

Global Warming Scam News:  Insane green building rules.

Today In Islam:  Muslim marriage culture (Daily Mail).  The new Nazis in Germany (Jihad Watch).

Pervert News:  Netflix drops a show.  The pedophile behind prison abolition.

Counterfeit Credit

Great Moments In Socialism It's Probably Nothing 17 Comments

Economist Keith Weiner goes into the history behind the implosion of Silicon Valley Bank and why it’s premature for Keynesians to declare victory. As we write this, there seems to be trouble brewing at Credit Suisse. The fact that one of the world’s largest banks is on the ropes should give pause to Canadians who are dismissive of any possibility of a bank run just because Canadian banks are so massive.

The root cause of the collapse of SVB was not stupidity at the bank, insufficient regulation, or corruption at the ratings agencies. The root cause is government interference in money and credit, especially including its irredeemable currency which necessarily inflicts interest rate instability upon the world.

During periods when interest rates are falling, most people love it. Who would dislike endless bull markets and hence capital gains, and rising transaction volumes, and hence profits for investment banks? Economists praise it as a “strong economy.” 

The economy was not strong. It was in a false boom, during the Fed’s binge phase. When the Fed went into purge mode, the boom turns to bust (this is starting to happen, but not fully realized yet). In the bust, banks fail, depositors lose their cash, etc. And the pressure grows to bail everyone out, thus leaping back into binge mode and another boom phase. 

Wednesday On Turtle Island

Turtle Island 34 Comments

Trudeau’s Canada:  Indians suing taxpayers again (Warning: CBC propaganda link).  Justin’s foreign affairs minister wants Putin gone.  Education in Doug Ford’s Ontario.  China supports Trudeau on Twitter.  Today Climate Justin burns jet fuel to Newfoundland. Trudeau will be throwing money around and avoiding any talk about China.  A typical Liberal MP.  What is Peking Justin hiding??

Biden’s America:  The teens are getting dumber.  More on the Silicon Valley Bank collapse.  The lying liars.  Communist activists at Stanford Law School.  Quite the board of directors at SVBS.  Leadership from Joe Biden.  A look at J.D. Vance.  The algae apocalypse.  Your morning meme.

Today In Jihad:  Islamophobia running rampant at the CRA (Warning: CBC propaganda link).  And diversity in Austria.

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