This evening we go back to 1974 to watch Tom Jones appear on Dutch TV in Amsterdam.
Your best tips of late are appreciated!
Honey, I Finished The Internet
The Deadly History Of Household Appliances
Left Coast economics
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?
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
Coleville area first to have a lithium development plan released
Grounded Lithium drilled the second targeted lithium well in Saskatchewan last summer. Now, it has released its development plans for the Coleville area in west central Saskatchewan, and picked up more land as well. This includes a drilling plan for a number of production and disposal wells.
China’s Chew Toy
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.
Biden’s America
Victor Davis Hanson explains that we are the new Byzantines.
Thursday On Turtle Island
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.
March 16, 2023: Reader Tips
Back in 1975, Lynyrd Skynyrd performed in San Francisco.
Your most interesting tips of late are definitely appreciated!
Well That Explains Everything
People actually voted these Liberal MPs into office. She can’t be influenced by the Chinese, because she’s white and Dutch. Meanwhile Dear Leader has appointed former governor general David Johnston to investigate. Expect the loyal bought and paid for media to drop the story now. In a few months Johnston will issue a statement that a public inquiry isn’t needed.
Counterfeit Credit
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.
Michigan Witch Repeatedly Lies
Is Coastal GasLink good or evil? Depends on who you ask
Wait, didn’t First Nations protests dramatically hold up the Coastal GasLink pipeline? And yet another BC First Nation wants to use that very same pipeline to supply its own liquefied natural gas terminal at Kitimat? How can this be? And the BC government just gave that LNG terminal the environmental go ahead?
Saskatchewan’s top 10
Did you know that Lampman and the Kerrobert area are neck-and-neck when it comes to the top producing conventional oil wells in Saskatchewan? And it’s really close, despite being over 500 km apart.
Wednesday On Turtle Island
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.
New Niche Agony
I don’t wish to be difficult, but, frankly, I’m struggling to believe that the average person in, say, Zimbabwe or Botswana is being left trembling and distraught by the Latin textbook name of a lizard or beetle. But hey, for those moved to tears, tissues are available at the bar.
From the University of Oxford’s Department of Biology, a new opportunity for ostentatious fretting.
March 15, 2023: Reader Tips
As we step backward in time, tonight we return to Seattle in 1977 to enjoy this live performance by Led Zeppelin.
Your best news tips are appreciated!
Honey, I Finished The Internet
Things That Make You Go Hmm…
One bank bailout leads to another.
Pronouns and Adjectives and Politics, Oh My
Heather Heying- How Now Cow of Brown?
This week, the Canadian province of British Columbia announced its fealty to a naked emperor, when it introduced “new modernizing legislation to correct outdated language by amending more than 2,300 instances of outdated gendered and binary terms from 21 ministries across 210 provincial statutes.”
Indeed
What language policing does is raises to consciousness the most mundane aspects of communication. This has at least two broadly negative effects. First, it makes it far more difficult to engage with people as the individuals that they are, rather than as an aggregation of demographic markers. And second, it makes it more difficult to discuss things of actual substance. Thus, we have the dumbing down of a population.