Cum Laude

Maybe you need to do some research and lay of your CBC and CNN.

The two-minute meeting between Trump and Putin in Vietnam plunged the Clinton Mass Disinformation Media into a state of hysteria – they simply do not know what to lie, especially given that in a couple of weeks the Washington Post journalists and their ilk in Moscow will be forced to register as foreign agents and provide corresponding information about themselves, including about the money and about the cookies. Under the threat of jail if attempted to lie. Such thing was unheard of even in the USSR and I’m sure that Trump asked for a meeting with Putin precisely because of this. And for him such meeting was fraught from the very beginning, but if a couple of dozen American journalists in Moscow are jailed, here will be such howling that Hawking’s predictions will be fulfilled ahead of schedule. And they canceled the meeting because it was possible to agree on something without an encounter, which for Trump really is fraught. However, a simple handshake of Putin and Trump was enough to cause an incredible squeal in the Goebbels style: some screams that Trump and Putin still met secretly and spent the night together, cutting off the carcass of Ukraine, some lie that Putin cried when he learned that Trump will not meet him, some argues that Trump founded a cult in his name, and some discovered the secret protocols of the marriage contract. The only thing that is not a lie is that Trump in the dispute over Russian interference in the election campaign of 2016 supported the Putin’s version, not the US intelligence(?) community. And the president’s son-in-law went so far as to suggest in view of the results of this campaign to fire half of CNN. An alternative version is that Trump asked Putin for a meeting because of the exacerbation of the North Korean threat, but canceled it after talking with Chairman Xi, but I do not believe that Trump is so stupid that he thinks he can do without Russia in the Korean question, no matter what Xi promises.

Seems that Bernie had a dram or two of the Davos Club Kool-Aid. He gave a speech where he recited the usual Democrat talking-points about Trump’s xenophobia, Islamophobia, homophobia, racism, sexism. I mention this because I just read an article about Dollar General. That retail chain is targeting thousands of American communities laid low by a generation of plant closures and offshoring. In the estimation of Dollar General execs, the lost jobs are never coming back, hence the opportunity and demand for Dollar General. Now you’d think that Bernie, having spent so much time on this very issue, wouldn’t get distracted. You’d think that he’d stick with what matters. But no. Bernie spent some words preposterizing, he talked about Trump’s EXTREME right wing agenda. So let’s see, over yonder in Asia Trump just gave a talking-to about alleviating an insupportable and unsustainable American trade deficit. You know, that thing that along with offshoring is the demolisher of American livelihoods and communities. I guess that issue, the same issue that Bernie used to talk about, counts as “extreme”. I thought that Bernie was better than that. See, Bernie started out good, Bernie used to tell it like it is, talking about an America ruined by a handful of billionaires and their Washington lackeys. It’s too bad. Bernie sold out. Bernie talked about cuts in government programs for working families. What he didn’t talk about is that glue that holds families and communities and societies together, long-term, well-paying, stable employment. Maybe Bernie got a visit. Or maybe Bernie got the memo that laid out for him the facts of LIFE and more particularly, whose interests matter in this world and whose interests don’t. Maybe the memo acted as smelling salts that woke him up to his own interests, chiefly self-preservation. Maybe Bernie spent some time gazing into the middle-distance re-evaluating matters. Clearly, the interests of the people he used to speak up for maybe don’t matter so much anymore. So it’s back to Democratic talking-points bullshit.

Often the responses here, as you often prove, aren't worth a nickel, so I chose to chat with myself. But I digress..... However, I was thinking on this subject after your post. It dawned on me the Fox, MSNBC, CNN, et al are no longer news networks; they are simply political commentary networks. Even that characterization is generous, as the commentary offered is incredible predictable and lacks any real insight. I know exactly how Fox views the proposed tax cuts: they are big enough, they don’t help your boss who you must view as your master. CNN: “Trump sucks!,” and that’s about it. How the talking heads on that channel haven’t killed themselves from the incessant chatting on one subject for two years is the real story. MSNBC: well, it’s a punch line for progressive hand-wringing and identity politics. Canada's CBC is an embarrassment. CTV - not much better. I have to turn to the wires themselves for news. The AP gives facts, BBC, though obviously left-leaning, at least provides substantive stories. No society can long continue like this; representative government of any sort requires, if not an educated populace, at least an informed one. The America of today cannot be characterized as that.

Altai, take a breath. The PBS News hour recently made me laugh. They had a story on Putin election meddling where they frantically reported that 126 million Americans were exposed to Russian messages on social media. ONE HUNDRED TWENTY SIX MILLION!!! Surely then this demands an election do-over. The Russians subverted American democracy. The Trump presidency is the evil spawn of the Kremlin and its diabolical leader. Trump is an illegitimate president. Surely everyone can see this. OUT WITH TRUMP. Ok, but somebody from the DNC or the exalted New York Times better have a talk with Twitter’s general counsel Edgett, who obviously isn’t getting the memos. He testified that Russian-linked accounts represented .012 percent of total Twitter accounts, that election related tweets coming from those accounts represented .74 percent of all election related tweets, that of 131,000 tweets coming from a known Russian troll farm during the campaign, 9 percent were election related. On the Facebook side of things, Facebook raised 27 billion dollars in ad revenue last year. The presidential election cost about 2.7 billion dollars. Trump and Clinton spent 81 million dollars on Facebook ads. The Russian devils spent about $100,000 for ads on Facebook. Given the mega-buck world of Facebook and election spending, is anybody daft enough to think that $100,000 is enough to catapult Trump into the White House? The social media world is swimming in behemoth sized volumes of money and ads and messages. These Russian numbers are ant-sized. Now, we all know that Progressives are data and evidence oriented. At least, that’s what they tell us. But this evidence doesn’t add up to an election result bought and paid for by Vladimir Putin. It doesn’t add up to squat. These pissant numbers are evidence of nothing, at least nothing like a social media world infused with Russian propaganda and fake news as portrayed by Democrats and their allies. The more the Democrats beat this drum, the more they look like they lost the election fair and square. The faster the Democrats shut up and move on the better off they’ll be.

My position, hot enough, is a principled one. The principle involved is simple: people have a right to be secure in their persons and free from coercion. If you think I’m engaging in some kind of moral relativism that blows with the winds of political fashion, you’re not thinking very straight.

Why is MSM so vapid and content to just sell tabloid level sleaze? Well, sex sells. It’s what the people want to read(or listen to or watch I suppose). Most don’t want to read in-depth stories of the big issues of the day that truly impact us. Way too boring. Much more exciting to read about who did what with whom in Hollywood. And so we fiddle while Rome burns. Keeps us from asking any thorny questions though, so the powers that be are just fine with that.

Meanwhile, a war between Saudi Arabia and Iran looks more likely; with that, the global oil markets will go berserk. At $1.25 per liter for 87 octane, from past experience, Canadians finally start to notice. At $2.00 per gallon and rising, Canadians would go apeshit and it would be dangerous to even go to a gas station.

I disagree. I don't an overwhelming number of teachers raising ire at a terrible math curriculum. And the unions could care less about the kids. They have never cared about kids, just optics.

Going to go OT a bit here, BC, but I've seen this before. In the latter stages of a bull market the extremes begin to show. Like stock markets that defy gravity, claims that “the small investor (i.e., suckers!) are back in the market, the $500 coffee makers, the ultra tall buildings, the massive planned developments, the $850 gold encrusted desserts — all true examples. Saw it 10-12 years ago….money chasing homes, people lining up for open houses, lottery systems to see who was allowed to buy. Denver now contemplates a 94-story building to dwarf anything now there. The original developer, from Miami of all places, withdrew for unexplained reasons, a “concrete” case of coitus interruptus if ever was. The 2005 red hot housing market in the DC came to an abrupt halt one day in August 2005; full dead stop, like a light switch got flipped. One of the longest bull markets in history is nearing it’s end. It will happen, or as Jim says, it will continue until it can’t. When the money flows dry up the music will stop, smart guys will grab a chair now.

Playing chicken with $80 trillion in derivatives is a bad idea, along with intercontinental ballistic missiles. However, the sad truth is the markets will continue to robo-trade with or without the existence of the masses of humanity.

MY OP was about Ontario. I've proven that Ontario is in a steady decline in math. You choose to obfuscate. Ontario is going down, down, down......just as my evidence shows. Nice try though. Public schools and their union parroting teachers are hurting too many students.

The likelihood is that the island will simply de-populate, putting a cap on the trend that has been underway now for many years. Where will they go? probably New York and Florida. With the island depopulated, the destroyed infrastructure will simply be abandoned, and the population that remains will once again revert to pre-industrial levels.

So simple, so true, yet so elusive. You can't buy love, and phony hugs don't decrease the deficit. Do you think in 20 years public schools will still exist? They are costing governments billions and the results are overwhelmingly dismal. It has, as you've said, become nothing more than a glorified extended daycare with the illusion that math, reading, and writing are still the focus.

Interesting, BC. We have a phrase in our local government that I am pretty sure is used often throughout the nation – NIMBY, Not In My Back Yard. It takes effect when someone decides to build something not so good near a neighborhood. The neighborhood comes out in force (for a short time) and there is a great gnashing of teeth while everyone else in the town could care less and remains asleep. Nobody notices, nobody cares, as Carlin often said. This principle is the basis for modern America when something horrible happens to somebody else, someplace else. The sellout media shows up beforehand with its logos and catchphrases, jumps all over the decimation, then goes away, off to the next event. People send in their $20 to the Clinton Foundation and then go back to sleep. It may not be the start of the Long Emergency for most of us yet, but it is for the Caribbean, especially PR. Any of us that used to frequent those islands can tell you that the destruction and desolation lingers for decades. This chain of events is not only real expensive, but it is going to take a damned long time to overcome if it in fact ever is. How does it all get paid, for, why all we need is a little bit of Too Much Magic, right?

I wish this would appear in every newspaper in the country. Well said, cannuck. Parents have overwhelmingly outsourced the raising of their children to paid daycare mercenaries. Then parents come home from work and spend maybe an hour or two with their children. For some, that time is filled by giving a child an Ipad and having them use an "educational" app that some tech giant tells you is important for academic development. The electronic babysitter, or pacifier, is used to keep the child busy and out of the way. Now we have a generation of snowflakes who are easily offended. They are delicate flowers, and we must be careful or they will form a life-long mental illness. However, great comment, like the one cannuck made above, would never make it into major newspapers because many who control the print have used daycares to raise their kids, so we continue with the one-sided narrative that daycare is the be all to end all. Kids need parents. It's as simple as that. I thoroughly enjoyed the book "Daycare Deception" by Brian C. Robertson. Jay Belsky, at one time was all for daycare, then after astute observations, became a major opponent of daycare.

Yes, I realized long ago I spelled Ontario wrong. Oh well.Llike overpaid people who run our expensive public education system say.....spelling doesn't matter.

It is all related, Omni. I'm sure after sleeping on it, you now realize how.

As far as Irma being a fatal blow to the banking system, I think this will be the black swan that triggers a rapid descent into collapse–economic, financial, and possibly social. It may take months to fully unwind, but this has the ability to be the domino that sets collapse in motion. It would be difficult to design a more catastrophic storm for the 3rd most populous state in the country.

I gotta figure the Fed will jump in with more and more QE, if only because they don’t know what else to do. While QE is certainly hitting up against diminishing returns, I’m guessing the bond market collapse could be delayed by several months at least. I wouldn’t short your bonds just yet. The long-overdue stock market correction, however, may not be delayed this time by an aggressive Fed pony doing their one trick. Of course, I’ve been wrong in predicting an equities correction for the last two years, so maybe the Fed actually has destroyed the “business cycle” after all…

What’s the old saying? Owe the bank $100K and you’ve got a problem. Owe the bank $100B and the bank has a problem. Although in this case we all have a problem, in that it’s our money the Fed will be debasing by printing more. Those of us who still have any dollars left to debase, anyway.

Will Kathleen Wynne do the right thing? likely not. https://gregashman.wordpress.com/2017/09/08/can-ontario-fix-its-maths-curriculum/

Read the comments after the article I cite below. People are paying a lot of money to have their kids tutored after school. This is a travesty, and further adds to the fact that public education needs to end. https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/education/ontario-to-target-math-report-cards-in-curriculum-revamp/article36180050/?ref=https://www.theglobeandmail.com&service=mobile