He's the South African you love to hate! Also, just cause he's uber-wealthy doesn't mean he knows everything about everything. Especially macroeconomics.
Very informative article. Economic theory is challenging at the best of times when calculating local variables and impacts. Understanding economics in a complex global economy is even more challenging. It’s important to keep the explanations coming and the references to Stats Canada data provides the required Canadian context. Thanks!
Do an executive summary. I can read a long winded Supreme Court decision with far less problems than your essays. I get that economics are dense, but so is law. I was taught to do an précis to ensure my thoughts were clear. I give up, half way through your efforts because it’s James Joyce “stream of consciousness”. I know you don’t intend it that way, but that’s how it reads.
This isn’t a fast food restaurant where you bark orders and make demands, and make assumptions about “what I intend.”
These aren’t legal decisions. These are long-form essays, and if they are more difficult to read than a Supreme Court decision, its because Supreme Court decisions are dealing entirely with concepts you already studied, know and understand. They rely on case references that refer to established precedent and jurisprudence within a single frame of reference.
I am not working in that world.
I am trying to explain and unpack new ideas, some of which are unfamiliar and different even to experts, while also unpacking why deeply ingrained concepts are wrong.
This was a five - ten minute read, and is a good explainer of some of the macro economic issues Canada faces. It’s pretty concise and clear and the charts are informative.
Certainly much clearer than many of the SCC rulings I have to read.
So because you haven’t a comprehension and reading problem, and the only thing that you can contribute is to bullshit critique and lies that you say you can read these long winded Supreme Court decisions, but this is too much you’re full of shit. You know that lady go crawl back over to ask you fucking wacko
That should be a mantra in Canada. It explains pretty much all of the economic shocks for the last 50 years, combined with the debt bubbles that burst that were created by oil prices rising and falling, and all the bets (and the bets on bets) that went wrong when that happened.
I appreciate your articles giving a fresh perspective on our economic situation. I don’t have the expertise to make judgments about economics, but your articles, including this one, make sense to me.
Your readers might enjoy the annotated oil-price graph, superimposed on Calgary economic markers, when I debunked the Calgary Herald's notion that the recession in Calgary was caused by the Liberal policies of Justin Trudeau:
I'd add that it wasn't just OPEC, it was OPEC+Russia. When bin Salman opened up his taps to drive American frackers broke, Putin wasn't about to take the revenue hit, and opened up HIS taps, as well.
Albertans also tend to blame their 2014-onward recession on the provincial government that was only elected because Hard Times had finally caused the Conservative party to lose, after 40+ years in power. But give conservatives just a couple of years to muddle up the dates, and in their memory, Liberals Caused It All. "...bin Salman, who?"
Thanks for this. It's not an accident - it's deliberate propaganda. The same thing happened, to some degree, with Obama when he was elected in 2008. It was one of the worst financial crashes in decades, and so people associated their pain with who was in power.
Biden leaves the US economy so far ahead of the rest of the G7 that we're barely in their rear-view; inflation beaten, infrastructure projects firing up daily.
For which Trump will be given all the credit! (When they're through with the advertising of it.)
NB: I use John Ralston Saul's formulation that "advertising", "public relations" and "propaganda" are all synonyms with different connotations.
I have a different view (as do a few other contrarians) which is that the US in a market super bubble and it is bursting and will certainly collapse on trumps watch, and the more he injects uncertainty into the market, the faster the collapse will happen.
“This kind of fact-shifting disinformation crap varies from annoying to frustrating to infuriating. They just keep pounding out the alternative-fact version over and over, knowing that over time, it becomes a truth for so many.”. Roy, you nailed it. Makes it so very difficult for casual news-followers to make informed decisions. Definitely describes the success of maga in the US and what I refer to as the Fox/X/right-wing news entity.
Wow, thanks for reading that post (you're probably the third reader; I know where I stand in the blogosphere). The additional pain I must heap upon you now is that the "disinformation crap" isn't so much billionaire propaganda as it is paying content. Rush Limbaugh got rich, that's why so many piled in. Roger Aisles earned $29M a year.
Frankly, their opposition doesn't just need material that works; they need material that *sells*. I'd advise confident lying, actually, at this point: I can't argue that it works.
Huh. I believe you. My own background is in science and medicine so I'm thinking about profits from that angle. Not many people know that profits from Big Natural has surpassed Big Pharma. Thinking of Dr Oz who has a very lucrative online "supplement" business, that promotes all sorts of junk science.
As noted in a few comments, no conspiracy is required to find the actors responsible for the collapse of the US and Canadian oil production markets. Strangely (not strangely), Trump was fine with Russia MBS devastating domestic production. As with everything from the economy to Public Health management, it’s very easy to flip the switch off, though takes decades to restart the machine, if it’s even possible after the shutdown…
Thank you for the context of the historical period at hand - I had initially dismissed Musk's communication as another typical lazy troll Dunning-Kruger tech-bro arrogant hyper-assertion.
I don't think most Canadians understand how much we depend on natural resources for our economy. For the majority of the population that is something that happens far away out of sight.
Very nice for our echo chamber here. Now. How to get this over to ‘their’ echo chamber? How to make this understandable and convincing to the very folks who need this info to make better political decisions at the ballot station?
Maybe video, parts 1, 2 and 3? People seem to read less. Or they listen to podcasts while working or driving. I know you've done Canadaland, which I've just discovered, and your voice is fine.
Trump’s fantasy that oil companies will sacrifice themselves for the greater good is as unlikely as the second coming. As for Canada and it’s especially dirty oil some might think it deserves the mind boggling forest fires.
A big part of the flat Debt to GDP in Canada during the past decade is excessive immigration. Even today, with unemployment nudging 7%, the government announced the 5% immigration target (2 million per year) will continue.
Every large corporation is a financial engineering entity. Every big box store, every fulfillment center, every Gigafactory is financial engineering.
---
One man's expenditure is another man's income
The premise of economic efficiency is the premise of profit by screwing somebody else's income.
Large corporations exist to become efficient, which means squeezing their customers and suppliers of everything they can. It comes from squeezing the communities of everything they can.
The future is local. This is how we take the world back.
If you want background on the mechanics of how big box stores, sack communities they touch, this video is by not-just-bikes is to the point.
Very informative article. Economic theory is challenging at the best of times when calculating local variables and impacts. Understanding economics in a complex global economy is even more challenging. It’s important to keep the explanations coming and the references to Stats Canada data provides the required Canadian context. Thanks!
Thank you!
Do an executive summary. I can read a long winded Supreme Court decision with far less problems than your essays. I get that economics are dense, but so is law. I was taught to do an précis to ensure my thoughts were clear. I give up, half way through your efforts because it’s James Joyce “stream of consciousness”. I know you don’t intend it that way, but that’s how it reads.
No.
This isn’t a fast food restaurant where you bark orders and make demands, and make assumptions about “what I intend.”
These aren’t legal decisions. These are long-form essays, and if they are more difficult to read than a Supreme Court decision, its because Supreme Court decisions are dealing entirely with concepts you already studied, know and understand. They rely on case references that refer to established precedent and jurisprudence within a single frame of reference.
I am not working in that world.
I am trying to explain and unpack new ideas, some of which are unfamiliar and different even to experts, while also unpacking why deeply ingrained concepts are wrong.
Oh my, this was a 3 minute read with my morning coffee. If we can’t read for 3 minutes and need a social media sized summary, we have an issue.
Far “fewer” problems.
This was a five - ten minute read, and is a good explainer of some of the macro economic issues Canada faces. It’s pretty concise and clear and the charts are informative.
Certainly much clearer than many of the SCC rulings I have to read.
I have no education in economics, and had to re-read certain sections, but many made sense to me.
So because you haven’t a comprehension and reading problem, and the only thing that you can contribute is to bullshit critique and lies that you say you can read these long winded Supreme Court decisions, but this is too much you’re full of shit. You know that lady go crawl back over to ask you fucking wacko
Good thing the oil patch has another Trudeau to blame for their woes. Just like the good ol days of the National Energy Program.
“It’s the price of oil, stupid!” Should be a mantra in Canada.
That should be a mantra in Canada. It explains pretty much all of the economic shocks for the last 50 years, combined with the debt bubbles that burst that were created by oil prices rising and falling, and all the bets (and the bets on bets) that went wrong when that happened.
I appreciate your articles giving a fresh perspective on our economic situation. I don’t have the expertise to make judgments about economics, but your articles, including this one, make sense to me.
Thank you! Most communications about economics are jargon-filled nonsense. People treat it like it’s quantum physics or brain surgery. It’s not.
Your readers might enjoy the annotated oil-price graph, superimposed on Calgary economic markers, when I debunked the Calgary Herald's notion that the recession in Calgary was caused by the Liberal policies of Justin Trudeau:
http://brander.ca/stackback#yycrecession
I'd add that it wasn't just OPEC, it was OPEC+Russia. When bin Salman opened up his taps to drive American frackers broke, Putin wasn't about to take the revenue hit, and opened up HIS taps, as well.
Albertans also tend to blame their 2014-onward recession on the provincial government that was only elected because Hard Times had finally caused the Conservative party to lose, after 40+ years in power. But give conservatives just a couple of years to muddle up the dates, and in their memory, Liberals Caused It All. "...bin Salman, who?"
Thanks for this. It's not an accident - it's deliberate propaganda. The same thing happened, to some degree, with Obama when he was elected in 2008. It was one of the worst financial crashes in decades, and so people associated their pain with who was in power.
Biden leaves the US economy so far ahead of the rest of the G7 that we're barely in their rear-view; inflation beaten, infrastructure projects firing up daily.
For which Trump will be given all the credit! (When they're through with the advertising of it.)
NB: I use John Ralston Saul's formulation that "advertising", "public relations" and "propaganda" are all synonyms with different connotations.
I have a different view (as do a few other contrarians) which is that the US in a market super bubble and it is bursting and will certainly collapse on trumps watch, and the more he injects uncertainty into the market, the faster the collapse will happen.
I wrote about it in another post.
Can you link that please?
“This kind of fact-shifting disinformation crap varies from annoying to frustrating to infuriating. They just keep pounding out the alternative-fact version over and over, knowing that over time, it becomes a truth for so many.”. Roy, you nailed it. Makes it so very difficult for casual news-followers to make informed decisions. Definitely describes the success of maga in the US and what I refer to as the Fox/X/right-wing news entity.
Wow, thanks for reading that post (you're probably the third reader; I know where I stand in the blogosphere). The additional pain I must heap upon you now is that the "disinformation crap" isn't so much billionaire propaganda as it is paying content. Rush Limbaugh got rich, that's why so many piled in. Roger Aisles earned $29M a year.
Frankly, their opposition doesn't just need material that works; they need material that *sells*. I'd advise confident lying, actually, at this point: I can't argue that it works.
Huh. I believe you. My own background is in science and medicine so I'm thinking about profits from that angle. Not many people know that profits from Big Natural has surpassed Big Pharma. Thinking of Dr Oz who has a very lucrative online "supplement" business, that promotes all sorts of junk science.
As noted in a few comments, no conspiracy is required to find the actors responsible for the collapse of the US and Canadian oil production markets. Strangely (not strangely), Trump was fine with Russia MBS devastating domestic production. As with everything from the economy to Public Health management, it’s very easy to flip the switch off, though takes decades to restart the machine, if it’s even possible after the shutdown…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Saudi_Arabia_relations
Out here in Alberta myself. Thank you for the local coverage from my vantage point.
Thank you. I really wish it would percolate out.
Thank you for the context of the historical period at hand - I had initially dismissed Musk's communication as another typical lazy troll Dunning-Kruger tech-bro arrogant hyper-assertion.
I don't think most Canadians understand how much we depend on natural resources for our economy. For the majority of the population that is something that happens far away out of sight.
Very nice for our echo chamber here. Now. How to get this over to ‘their’ echo chamber? How to make this understandable and convincing to the very folks who need this info to make better political decisions at the ballot station?
Repost it everywhere. I do.
Maybe video, parts 1, 2 and 3? People seem to read less. Or they listen to podcasts while working or driving. I know you've done Canadaland, which I've just discovered, and your voice is fine.
Done. I must have at 3 followers!
Send it to newspapers and pundits and ask why the don’t write about it.
I know why they don’t. The editorial board for Post Media will simply chuck it in the bin.
Trump’s fantasy that oil companies will sacrifice themselves for the greater good is as unlikely as the second coming. As for Canada and it’s especially dirty oil some might think it deserves the mind boggling forest fires.
A big part of the flat Debt to GDP in Canada during the past decade is excessive immigration. Even today, with unemployment nudging 7%, the government announced the 5% immigration target (2 million per year) will continue.
No, it absolutely is not.
Every large corporation is a financial engineering entity. Every big box store, every fulfillment center, every Gigafactory is financial engineering.
---
One man's expenditure is another man's income
The premise of economic efficiency is the premise of profit by screwing somebody else's income.
Large corporations exist to become efficient, which means squeezing their customers and suppliers of everything they can. It comes from squeezing the communities of everything they can.
The future is local. This is how we take the world back.
If you want background on the mechanics of how big box stores, sack communities they touch, this video is by not-just-bikes is to the point.
https://youtu.be/r7-e_yhEzIw
I don’t know why anyone believes anything Elon says??
Unfortunately (for them), they’re out there.