Blog 69 Canada to Build Wall: the Crumbling Canadian-American Relationship

Blog  2-69  Canada to Build Wall: the Crumbling Canadian-American Relationship 

Recently leaked Cabinet notes reveal that the Canadian government is gearing up to implement secret plans to build a 4000-mile wall along the Canada-USA border.

It is part of a far-sighted response to the current American government’s  open rejection of the projected pace of global warming and its insistence on extracting the last dollar’s worth of fossil fuels from coal and oil fields. No change in that official view can be expected, the notes explain, until the current administration (of mostly rich old men) dies off. 

Prompted by the recent report of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) that the  scientific evidence suggests the irreversible turning-point may come as early as the 2030’s, the wall project addresses a later time at which the ozone layer has been sufficiently destroyed and the earth is in the stage of final meltdown. The American mainland south of the 49th parallel will have become too hot and dry for human habitation. 

So the report envisages  a vast assault of Americans attempting to cross the Canadian border fleeing towards the North Pole*. The processing of immigrants can only be managed if they are funnelled through a limited number of functioning entry points. Specifically mentioned is the probability  that American criminals, rapists and “economic refugees”  will also attempt to enter at other points if refused at the well-defended gaps in the wall.

Footnote: The migrants may claim that they are only trying to get to American territory in Alaska. The notes’ frank response is that Alaska may have already seceded and be defending its own borders.

* (It is expected that the Poles will be the last habitable areas of the planet. Unfortunately the ill-educated migrants, it is assumed, will not know that the North Pole is in the middle of the Arctic Ocean and only the South Pole is on the solid ground of a continent. )

Now, the authenticity of these “notes” is questionable, because the current Liberal government of Prime Minister Trudeau is, in fact, trying to build a large pipeline expansion to the Pacific ocean - to get the last dollar’s worth of the particularly dirty Canadian type of oil out of the ground and onto the market. So, is that a government whose “leaked” notes can be believed?

Probably not.

Back to the more credible, and optimistic, Joyce Nelson book, in the next blog.

Blog 2 66 Nelson: Escaping the Dystopian Tsunami Pt 2

Blog 2 - 66  Escaping the Dystopian Tsunami  Part 2

The best way to review a Joyce Nelson book on the world money “system” has to be to quote it.

So here are some samples:

1. How our money is created: not by governments “printing“ it. That is just a figure of speech, and applies to about 2% of the money we use - the cash in your pocket.

Quoting Nelson  p54 (referring to the Swiss Initiative to reactive their state-owned bank.)

Fractional Reserve p54

  "The [Swiss] Initiative targets what’s called “fractional reserve banking”, whereby a private bank creates money out of thin air by creating loans based on a mere fraction held on deposit. For example, a bank may have $1 billion on deposit from savers, but under fractional reserve banking, it can lend out that $1 billion ten times or more simultaneously, and collect interest on that $10 billion (or more) worth of loans - all without having more than a fraction (that first $billion) on deposit to back up the loans."

John Kenneth Galbraith’s comment on it: (Look him up; his credentials are impeccable and huge.)

         “The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent.”

That is to say, anybody - yes, that’s you and me - anybody can understand how most of the world’s money comes into existence. Private Banks loan it into existence - and collect interest on it. A government’s taxation is chickenfeed compared to the banking industry’s taxation on the money you use every day.

And this is the single most important thing to understand about the world economy. We are all using borrowed money (and paying the private banks interest for the privilege/convenience/necessity of having money to use. "We" includes everybody except those who deal exclusively in cash. Cash is the only money which does not have to be rented at interest. (The private banks are trying to do away with that 2% cash, of course.)

P.27  " The good news is that there is nothing to prevent cities and provinces from setting up their own public banks to bypass the Canadian Infrastructure Bank* "privatization bank", or simply to control their own capital, rather than handing it over to Bay Street or Wall Street banksters while paying millions in fees to them",

*Canadian Infrastructure Bank.  A bank set up by the current Canadian government, totally free from government control  to finance large infrastructure projects, which may or may not, be profitable investments). The stated object is to get the three biggest Canadian pension funds to buy into them.

More to come….

Blog 2-65 Bypassing Dystopia - a Review

      MONEY

POWER

                       Power attracts money like a magnet.

                                  Money corrupts power like a cancer

Blog 65  Bypassing Dystopia  - a Review.

Bypassing Dystopia  is another homer by Canadian, Joyce Nelson!  

But what’s wrong with it?  I bought a dozen copies of her previous book, Beyond Banksters, and had no difficulty in passing them out  as “enlightening" (and free) reads to friends at the curling club and other venues. Yesterday I tried the same offer with Dystopia, and had only two takers.

It has to be the title. I mean it’;s a splendid title for language nerds and history freaks like me. But for some folk not so inclined it may sound like directions for a highway detour - “Bypassing DYSTOPIA”. If that’s you, skip down to the footnote for a short explanation.

And permit me to subtitle her book “Countering the Current World (Dis)Order”_

*End note:  The title alludes to a travel-fiction book called Utopia, published in 1616. - that’s right, 1616 - by Sir Thomas More. Every college English major reads it as a masterpiece of political and social satire. Two words are at play in its title; eutopia (Greek), meaning “a good place”, an ideal society, and utopia (Greek), meaning “no place.” That is, More is ironically saying that eutopia, presented in his book, does not exist - at least not yet. 

On the other hand, “Dystopia"  which means a “not good place, a place where everything is wrong". appeared first in English about 200 years after More’s Utopia. 

So Nelson uses "Dystopia" to refer to the world presented on our daily TV news in 2018, where so many things seem to be so wrong that you just want to shut the damn thing off and let the President and the gun-toting psychotics carry on. (To say nothing of the extreme climate events.)

We can’t do that, of course, and Nelson offers hope, and direction, for the human race to bypass this stage of our collective history. With examples of what can be done and what is being done!

Next blog we’ll give you a few home runs from the book.

Blog 2 64 Are People Basically Good, Or Basically Bad?

Blog 2 - 64  Are we basically good or basically bad?

A colleague of mine attended a conference for middle management personnel. I don’t remember the topic, but the attendees were divided about equally  between government and private sector people. 

The organizers provided some preliminary activities to put the group at ease. One of these activities provides food for thought. They asked the conferees to look at two options, and then, without discussion, separate themselves into two different rooms depending on their personal answer.

The Question:

Are people basically good, but corrupted by society ,or are people basically bad and must be controlled by society?

My colleague reported that 

almost all the private sector people chose the first option 

(folk are basically good but are corrupted by society);

Almost all of the civil servants chose the other option 

(people are basically bad and need to be controlled by society.

We’ll come back to that. Let’s set it in the middle of divided America - or even take a larger view: the divided world.  Ask a wide sample of people anywhere in the world this question: is government a good thing or a bad thing? You’ll have a similar division between 

1. those who see government unequivocally as an evil, restricting their personal freedoms and ambitions, Actually, they often don't express or even recognize the underlined motif.

Example:  Corporate CEO’s and shareholders in western “democracies” (In America, for instance, they’re celebrating the President’s recent banking de-regulation. and other reductions of government powers). See previous blog.

2. those who see government as the focus of hope for their well-being. 

Example: those Franklin Roosevelt referred to as “The Forgotten Man at the Bottom of the Economic Pyramid” (Roosevelt really meant it and did something about it, but no rational American expects the current President ever to actually do anything for the FMABOEP - least of all members of Congress.) 

Obamacare, now… 

Permit me to add a third, currently prominent, attitude:, 

3. those who fear that their governments will seriously harm them. 

Examples:  critics of the governments in Mr. Erdogan’s Turkey, or Mr Duterte’s Philippines, or Mr. Bashar Al-Asad’s Syria. What do they have to fear (in these nominal democracies)?

It would be a better world if we could recognize that “the best of all possible worlds” is one on which most citizens were focussed on the common good .  Repeat.

That means agreeing that both governments and private agents should not be primarily acquisitors but contributors. 

And we might dream of persuading even some of our soulless citizens - the corporations - if civilized by governments, or, better, self-civilized. 

You have to visualize it, then say it, to make it happen (before we destroy the lot of us).

So back to the conference: here’s the next level of question. How do you explain the conviction of private sector execs that we are all good but corrupted by others, and the public execs’ conviction that we are all bad and need to be restrained?  Think about it. till next time.

2-63 "With liberty and justice for all."

The Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief*, and Consumer Protection Act, May 2018

Economic Growth  - yes we're already dubious about that goal.

* Regulatory Relief - sounds like a cure for constipation - getting rid of the bullshit,? Not likely..  But they could have been really brazen and started with ,"Consumer protection".  (That doesn't men free condoms, does it?)

Well, consumers certainly need protection in these times of climbing consumer price inflation, which seems to be somewhat related to unrestricted corporate gouging (What are you cutting down on in order to feed your children and keep a roof over their heads?.  Oh, more ketchup sandwiches, I guess..


Well enough of your blogger's self-amusing comments on a piece of legislation he has not read. Here's a more informed opinion, from Americans for Financial Reform.

"S. 2155 is a bank lobbyist's dream:  it contains over two dozen deregulatory gifts to the financial industry. These include provisions that roll back the rules on some of the biggest banks in the country, increasing the risk of financial disaster and a public bail-out[. Other provisions would expose home buyers to financial exploitation and predatory lending, as well as enable racial discrimination in mortgage lending ... This bill is a victory for banks and their lobbyists over the interests of virtually everyone else.


The biggest U.S banks , one researcher reported, "made $2.5 bn from [Trump's] Tax Law in one quarter. After the law was passed, Gary D. Cohn, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, resigned as adviser to President Trump."

Ah, how sad for Gary.  Back to the office grind.      
And bonuses!

Blog series 2 62 NAFTA Negotiations - Scripted?

Blog 2 - 62 Scripted  NAFTA Negotiations?

Okay, let’s take a closer look at President Trump and Canadian PM Trudeau’s curious dance. In one area they are certainly behaving more like dancers, in step, than opposites across a negotiating table.   

*The previous NAFTA could be abrogated with only six month’s notice. Hmmnnn, The President has never mentioned that. He always calls for "tearing it up."

This blog was withdrawn when your blogger realized that the dispute mechanism Trudeau was holding out for was not the investor-state-dispute resolution of Chapter 11 NAFTA.   but a Chapter 19, concerned with state-to-state disputes.

 Mr. Trudeau got his dispute resolution (Chap 19) and the Chapter 11 investor-state provision seems to be on its way out internationally.

Blog 2-61 Homo Fonicus

The Law of Money

Money goes where money is.

               Money

 Power

                                                                                   

                                                                       

Homo Fonicus  A,D 3000

 Blog 2-61  The Future Homo Fonicus

Imagine your Friendly Old Blogger at a crowded tourist site, people-watching.  Crowds of tourists, short and tall, male and female, young and old. 

Instead of inventing stories about the individual strangers - your blogger’s usual silent occupation - he was attracted to something different. It was most noticeable in the 14-25 year-olds, particularly in the young ladies. Ohh. So why was your FOB watching young ladies? And wondering…  What was he looking at? 

Well for starters his attention was attracted to an age group that used to have straight backs, flat backs, with heads mounted vertically above square shoulders. Like homo sapiens. Seriously. 

On average these 2018 young people’s backs were more rounded, their heads more extended forward, than would have been the case thirty years ago. The number of girls - and young children - who were wearing glasses seemed higher, too. 

And, of course there were thousands of phones on display. (Ah, of course. That’s what the old fogg is getting at.)

Yes but. This is not a Luddite attack on current technology. It draws attention to a physical threat to the human race in the billions of screens of small devices absorbing human eyes and attentions in 2018. 

Your observer straightened his own shoulders and stood tall in a pose he thought was more erect, and tried to stretch back a pair of shoulders rounded by careless age (and of recent years by a lot of time spent before a computer screen).

Now, I could go on doing a futuristic look at how these changes will affect ideals of human body beauty. Will all round-shouldered young bucks prefer females of the same design?

I digress. A more important concern may be how the human intellect will be affected. Mind matters.

So let’s stretch what mind we have to the distant future of man - the age of the foniacs (3000  A.D) - 

They are recognizable by 

1 - hunched shoulders

2 - head thrust forward

3 - thick reading glasses

4 - hearing aid for hearing destroyed by earbuds

5 - rounded backbones all the way down to short and spindly legs

They will be afflicted by foniasm, a pleasurable mental aberration which excludes all sensations except those emanating from I-fones. Is this the beginning of the end of man” - addiction to his/her dopamine through a tiny screen?

No, I project a population divided, as now: there will be elites who can see, hear, run and think, and foniacs — kept under control by fine-tuned personal messaging. Just as the Roman emperors kept their mobs contained - by bread and circuses.  Bread was an issue of free grain. Circuses were performed in the colosseum where the proles watched the Christians & Lions Show, the Gladiators to the Death Show. and the Imperial Chariot Races. 

Today it is television, and the fone. Lots of circus power there, especially if you don’t mute the commercials

But what about the “bread”? Maybe a guaranteed annual income ?? !!!. 

Maybe, but the fatal disease of elites, the irresistible “MORE AND MORE AND MORE OF THE PIE” syndrome, will finally reach its consummation. No more bread for “them.”                       

That will result in mass foniac demonstrations. 

“The foniacs are revolting, Victor!”

“They’ve always been revolting, Harold.”!

So the elites cut off the foniacs' fone service  The foniacs go into violent withdrawal symptoms starting with rapidly twitching fingers. (Not good, if they happen to have access to assault rifles, which  will still be easy to obtain in America).

Coffee, anyone? Double double? Okay.

                                                                         

                                                    .

BLOG 2 60 Cheeky New Zealand

Blog 2 - 62 Scripted  NAFTA Negotiations?

Okay, let’s take a closer look at President Trump and Canadian PM Trudeau’s curious dance. In one area they are certainly behaving more like dancers, in step, than opposites across a negotiating table.   

We’re looking at two issues: 

1. Canada’s dairy farmers’ marketing practices; and  

2. The dispute resolution procedures.

Now from one point of view, it looks like a set-up for a quid pro quo trade-off. Trudeau sacrifices his dairy farmers and, in return, gets the dispute resolution process into the Agreement.. Trump gets to sell a lot more milk in Canada (to the detriment of the host country’s dairymen (and women). And both claim to their citizens that they won!

Looks good. Except for the widely held understanding - (on which your blogger has already ex[pressed his sharp opinion, (Blogs  45 and 48) - a widely held understanding that 

a. The dispute settlement regime, permits foreign corporations to sue national states for any action that impinges an the corporation’s present profits OR future profits. Examples coming), and

b. Over time, the country with the most and biggest corporations always wins under these dispute resolution treaties. We won’t bore you with the historical evidence.

In this case of the dancing leaders, which is the bigger country with the most corporations,? 

So which is the country whose corporations will routinely sue-and win?  You got that ? Good. I thought it was pretty easy, too.

The only explanation for the Trump-Trudeau’s public stances is that this part of the “negotiation” has been scripted in advance

Canada has the most to lose if the dispute resolution procedures are retained. American firms can continue to thwart Canada legislation, or be well compensated.  

And all Canada has to  do to "achieve" that, is to give away its dairy products management system to help American dairy farmers make more money in Canada.

But that’s not “Quid pro quo“. It looks more like pre-scripted surrender, Mr. Trudeau,

If you have a better explanation, I’m open to hearing it. But I’m pretty smart. And I have been following NAFTA outcomes for quite a long time.

 Never mind, you Canadians. There’s an election on your horizon, too - tho’ it may be too late to revoke NAFTA, if you've signed. Too late.*

*The previous NAFTA could be abrogated with only six month’s notice. Hmmnnn, The President has never mentioned that. He always calls for "tearing it up."

2 - 59 Calling on Humanity's Brain

Blog 2 59   Calling on Humanity’s Brain

Hello, Victor, How are you doing?

Oh, hello Harold.  Well, actually, not so bad. My figures are not all in yet , but it looks as if I broke the two hundred mil mark for the first time last year.

Oh, very impressive. You must have a very good brain.

Well, yes I guess so.

Where did you get it?

What do you mean, where did I get it?

Your brain. Did you buy it? 

No! What are you talking about, Harold?

Did you do anything special  to get your brain?

No.., I’ve always just had it. It came in the package, you might say.

“Came in the package”?  So, it was actually a free gift. And you’ve used it to make two hundred mil last year?  Good return on investment, I’ld say.

Okay, Harold, what are you talking about?

Well, I’ve been thinking a lot lately… Thinking that if the 1% of the world’s people with the best brains - that’s about eighty million top-notch brains - thought of themselves as the brain of humanity, rather than as just super-bright individuals, what could they accomplish? If even half of them thought of themselves as the brain of humanity and they set about to do what a brain does - keep the rest of the body fit and happy - wouldn’t they leave the world - which they inevitably will do - wouldn’t they leave the world a much better place?

Harold, you’re losing your perspective.

Hmmmnn. No, Victor, I think I may be finding it

Hatched in New Zealand.   Feb. 2018

Blog 58 Defining Democracy: a Down-Under Definition

 Blog 58 Defining Democracy: a Down-Under Definition.

In these  blogs I have bored you more than once with academic, polysyllabic, etymological  derivations and explications of such terms as democracy, oligarchy,  aristocracy,  

                            yatayatayata… Apologies for previous failings. 

We have just returned from a two-month visit to a real democracy, and had some conversations with real New Zealanders, especially Adam  (real name, which he has given permission to use - Greg Adams) a practising democrat and a clear-thinking man of parts.

It seems to have been a much-needed break for us and demonstrates that even an old fogg can get a new idea or two.

So this blog, item one, how to define democracy, and the next blog, item two, the brain of humanity, were hatched, like penguin chicks, in New Zealand.

Item One

In a world where almost all governments call themselves democratic, maybe this is a useful test: ignore the claim and examine the outcomes.

First step: make a list. Ask what would the people, if they really were calling the shots, want? Then check the reality. How does Nation X actually stack up against  that list. 

Here’s my short list. Yours may be quite different, but just as effective as a democracy litmus test:

1.  Public health care. 

Where the typical citizen doesn’t have to worry about the costs. Just like the rich citizen. And I don’t think it would be too hard to find enough doctors who would want to care for the ”less than rich”, because… well, just because they would think it is a good thing to do. I certainly know some.

2. Free Public education,.

No overwhelming fees and long-lasting student debt burden.  But this one is not just a wish. It’s essential for the creation and survival of democracy.  To stay in charge, the citizenry must have the tools to be effective critics, to  be able to unmask the propaganda and explode PR BS from government or corporate or other special interests. Free, and good, education (as good as any private school education, for example) is vital to provide those tools.

3. A graduated taxation system.  This is what thelawofmoney blog is all about. Without public control of the money supply, the law of money - money goes where money is - will, suck the wealth out of any economy and bank it at the top.

(Even if all the currently-existing dodges to conceal hidden hoards were closed, the law of money would still operate.)

So what is a graduated taxation system? 

What is it not? Well it is not what has been called a “fair taxation”, system, where a rate of tax - say 15% - is levied on all incomes equally. If that sounds fair to you, you haven’t had enough of #2 - a good public education. 

Simply, in a graduated tax system, higher income/wealth taxpayers pay at higher rate (percentage) than lower income/wealth taxpayers. 

Here’s a graduated income tax system - not a practical proposal, for illustration only.  It shows sample annual incomes from $20,000 to $2 billion.

INCOME      TAX       TAX PAID       REMAINING

                        RATE   INCOME

$2,000.000,000 90% $1,800,000,000 $200,000,000

   $600,000,000 80%   $480,000,000 $120,000,000

   $100,000,000 70%     $70,000,000   $30,000,000

     $50,000,000 60%     $30.000,000  $20,000,000

—————————————————————————————-

—————————————————————————————

    $500,000 30% $150,000 $350,000

    $100,000 20%               $20,000         $80,000

$50,000 10%                 $5,000         $45,000

$20,000 5%                  $1,000         $19,000

There are better grounds for arguing  this as a fair taxation system than there are for the 15% flat tax. 

Blog 57 A News Commentary for the Day (March 14, 2018) Seventeen Minutes

Blog 57  A News Special of the Day (March 14.2018.) 

This blog has for the most part avoided the top news topic of the last two years - the classroom behavior of the nation’s most prominent schoolboy. But, without naming him, permit me to make a few observations on his response to the problem of the shooting deaths in our schools. Now I’m not referring to the little though long-standing problem in ghetto schools, but to the big problem of discontented shooters randomly ravaging schools with automatic weapons. 

Following the mantra of some NRA members and other respectable citizens, that “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people,” or the equally preposterous proposition that “There would be less crime if every citizen was armed”, permit me, on the grounds that every proposal has a right to be heard, to comment on an even more radically ridiculous proposal - that teachers in American schools should be armed with guns.

Talking points:

1. In the intimacy of a school it would be impossible to conceal which teachers were packing. “My Bobby [third grade] saw Mr. Sawyer’s gun poking out of his pocket.”

Since many of the shooters are disgruntled students of the schools they shoot up, they, too, would know who the gun-toters were. So the shooter-to-be would open the door of that classroom first to start his spree by taking down the armed teacher. Sometimes he would succeed.

2. Now you know how parents often have an overactive interest in their children’s educational welfare. Such parents would demand that their child not be placed in a packing teacher’s class. After all, they would claim, it is more dangerous there. The point is, that it would increase the administrative burden of assigning students to classes. You might ask for parents to volunteer their children for those particular classes, but what if a principal couldn’t get enough volunteers? Just a minor administrative problem. Hire a few more teachers. No, the budget-conscious administrative voices would block that.

2 A good alternative proposal then has recently emerged: equip all the pupils with guns. Then… then, the ultimate solution,  there would be no crime, nobody would be killed (according to the “guns don’t kill people” principle.) 

3 Well,I don’t know. That argument would make the shooter-to-be an honest citizen merely exercising his Second Amendment rights. Trust me. In America today, anything is possible.  Even in Supreme Court decisions.  Remember the Citizens United decision that money must be allowed to buy elections. Blog #14

4  Attaining competence with firearms under either regime - armed teachers, or armed students. 

Now, open disclosure  here. Your blogster has not handled a firearm for many years, but was once upon a time an instructor teaching cadets how to clean, load and fire a military rifle. He even fired a Bren machine gun. It was a weighty weapon with a pair of legs on the barrel. You plopped it down on the ground on its legs and laid your own body on the ground behind it. If you just squeezed the trigger you could empty a magazine in seconds. So we were taught to say “Sunovabitch, Sunovabitch. Sunovabitch” as we squeezed the trigger  three times. That fired off only three or four rounds with each squeeze. 

But, I digress. Maybe just as well, even though there are several more points to be made regarding “unintended consequences” and “collateral damage” if the armed schools followed the long-held American tradition of “Shoot first, and ask questions later.” 

But, enough is enough on this subject..

Next posting, back to the law of money and a new approach to recognizing a real democracy, thanks to Adam, the man..