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!
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 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.
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.
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?
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I don’t know why anyone believes anything Elon says??
Unfortunately (for them), they’re out there.