Globe & Mail opinion writers express their Canadian patriotism by calling Trump names

In particular, their glee over Carney's alleged calling out of Trump at Davos doesn't appear to be based on what our PM actually said. A careful reading shows Carney was calling out the "rules-based international order," which he claims has been a fiction "for decades." In other words, long before Trump. Good on Carney for that. The prevailing view, not only in the pages of the Globe but at the CBC, is that the rules-based order was chugging along, happily bringing peace and prosperity, American style, to all who dare to sip from the cup of Freedom, Democracy, and American hegemony, until the wicked and evil and insane rapist and probable child molester Donald Trump got his tiny grubby hands around its throat. As Carney rightfully pointed out, that's been bullshit for decades. Canadian elites, American Empire Loyalists all, believe Trump is the problem, and that absent a Trump victory in '24, Canadians would still be basking in the eternal sunshine of perpetual rule of the Clintons' Democratic Party machine. Grow up! If that's not enough, quite a few patriotic pundits are taking oodles of umbrage at Trump's claim that some of the NATO allies did their best to avoid the heavy lifting in Afghanistan. Does he have a point? All 30 NATO members contributed troops to the International Security Assistance Force, yet only two members, USA and UK, sustained 90% of combat fatalities (Canada had 3rd highest total). On a per-capita basis, Estonia, Denmark, US and UK are the only members with more casualties than Canada's 4.7 per million. Compare that to 1.4 in France, .88 in Italy, .76 in Germany, and a miniscule .09 for Belgium, home of NATO's HQ! Trump is obviously right; many NATO partners have been content to let other's do the heavy lifting.

Carney spills the beans; "Rules-based International Order" has been bullshit all along

Mark Carney made quite an impression with his turn at the pulpit in Davos yesterday. He let the cat out of the bag; the much ballyhooed rules-based order has always been what Russian disinfo claimed, ie Uncle Sam made the rules and the rest followed orders. According to Mark, more powerful nations have always used their relative advantages to get their way over weaker ones. Yup, this has been banal truism numero uno since cavemen invented geopolitics. It's hardly a fresh new insight. The only reason it's remarkable is because it fell from the lips of PM Carney, the ultimate company man, faithful steward of the Capitalist Way and loyal servant to the Billionaire Class. There has never been a more committed champion of the status quo than Mr Carney. From Harvard to Goldman Sachs to Brookfield, he rolled in the biggest of big leagues. If a true believer like Carney is losing faith, what's next?

Russia Warcrimes House

I was catching up on the news at Al Jazeera, and the top story was about how Zelensky addressed the opening plenum at the Davos confab. Well, of course he did! What doesn’t he address these days? He’s the most successful media pop-tart darling since Greta Thunberg! Then Al Jazeera goes to its local dude on the ground, who has a special guest to explain some shit to us dumbfucks. The expert is from the International Institute for Strategic Studies. He explains the whole nine yards about Putin’s megalomania etc. and how he is losing this totally unprovoked war he started. Did a five minute Google on the International Institute for Strategic Studies and noticed former CIA director John Brennan is on the board of trustees. That pretty much tells you all you have to know! Then our intrepid journalist takes us to downtown Davos to point out that the vacant Russia House, where the Russian delegation normally stays, has been re-christened the Russia Warcrimes House. That’s a propaganda project funded by non other than Victor Pinchuk, a Jewish Ukrainian oligarch. (As an aside, how can Ukraine harbour fascists if they have Jewish oligarchs?) Victor’s big break came when he married the daughter of the Ukrainian President back before Joe Biden cleaned up corruption in that country. The nuptials were barely concluded before Pinchuk was the proud owner of Ukraine’s premier specialty steel concern. Some guys have all the luck! Oddly enough, in her book “Plutocrats,” author Chrystia Freeland names Pinchuk as number three on the list of plutocrats who have become her personal friends, right after George Soros and Google’s Eric Schmidt. And that was way before she became deputy PM of Canada in addition to Ambassador at Large for Ukraine. Even more oddly than that, his Wikipedia page informs me that in 2016 he wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal calling on Ukraine to make serious compromises to ensure peace with Russia. Now he’s funding Russia Warcrimes House. Who says Chrystia doesn’t have schlep!

The reset that's coming isn't the one Klaus and the gang had in mind

For two years, the experts in the media told us which experts in science and medicine were the right experts to advise the expert political advisers so that there could be a consensus of experts who were qualified to dictate how we non-experts would live our lives.

For decades, the top experts from the top schools have been forging US foreign policy. These experts are unaccountable, because they are unelected technocrats, and they are experts.

You're not an expert. 

I'm not an expert either, but let me explain something to the experts.

We non-experts have pretty much had it up to here with you experts.

There is more and more evidence that the science and medical experts who were deplatformed, ostracised, and cast out of the temple by the media gate-keepers, largely had it right (see Gupta, Kulldorff et al), and the experts who were trotted out to promote and amplify bullshit every day for two years, largely had it wrong.

All those experts at State and the Pentagon who spent the last fifty years formulating America's foreign policy have done a bang-up job too, have they not? Look around!

The technocrat-expert Schwabbies have played their hand.

The non-experts are calling their bluff.

Freeland's world

Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are both disciplined, dogged millionaires who describe their more popular wives as their better halves, hold degrees from Harvard Law School, and have a preference for data-driven arguments rather than emotional ones. Both men struggle to connect with the grassroots of their parties, coming across as cold and robotic.

That's a taste of Chrystia Freeland's analytical prowess from her 2012 book, "Plutocrats; the rise of the new global super-rich and the fall of everyone else." I'd never read it, but Santa was kind enough to drop off a copy yesterday.

Written a couple of years before being recruited by Team Trudeau's Liberals, the book gives some insights into the life of our now Deputy Prime Minister. Chrystia was a busy gal back in her journo days. There's a couple of thousand billionaires loose on planet earth, and she name-drops most of them here. They're mostly hard-working folks who built their own fortunes. They just happened to have the right skill-sets to surf the revolutionary wave of algorithms, AI, and automated trading that define the modern era.

It's a slow day when Chrystia isn't having breakfast with a billionaire CEO or lunch with a Silicon Valley billionaire or dinner with a billionaire Russian oligarch or moderating an expert panel of billionaires at Davos.

She loves billionaires and they love her back. In her acknowledgements she informs the reader that "many members of the global super-elite have helped me to understand their world and some have become friends." There follows a list of a dozen of her billionaire friends, starting with George Soros.

Maybe that explains why her book doesn't have much of a critical perspective. Billionaires are just nice folks who are really smart and well-educated and happen to have a lot of money. Nothing to see here, folks.

Having followed Chrystia's political career for a few years, she strikes me as a lightweight, in over her head. That was especially obvious in the Global Affairs portfolio. That's not a surprise when you consider her superficial comparison of Barry and Mittens above.

Romney was a seasoned slash-and-burn hedgie with at least hundreds of millions worth of assets. Obama was a college professor who barely squeaked into millionaire territory on the strength of a book deal. Painting both as "dogged millionaires" is silly and dishonest. So is the claim that both were cold and robotic. Romney, maybe. Obama, not so much.

Nowhere does she suggest that billionaires are a threat to democracy. In the USA, it's fair to say that the billionaire class has more or less bought the political system, lock, stock, and barrel. In Canada we're running a little behind, but it'll take a concerted effort to avoid ending up in the same dismal place.

Don't expect Chrystia Freeland to be part of that effort.

NEWS FLASH: the rich should intervene in politics!

You mean they don't now and they haven't before?

That's the latest bullshitic twattery emanating from Davos, courtesy of hedge-fund sharpie Anthony Scaramucci.

While Tony may be a hedge-fund sharpie, he doesn't seem that sharp overall. He's backing Jeb for the the 2016 White House race?

Get outta here!

And what's this crap about the government taking more than 50% of every dollar he "earns?" Having been a key cog in The Mittster's run at the White House in the 2012 campaign, Tony would be well acquainted with the fact that his fellow hedgie got tons of ink over his paying a mere 14% on his declared 20 million per year income.

So hedgie Mitt pays 14%, but hedgie Tony pays over 50%?

Not bloody likely!.. that's just raw sewage if you ask me.

The other obvious omission in the discussion about Romney's taxes was that carefully crafted disclaimer that this number referred to Mitt's declared US income. Hey, it's obvious as can be that the reason hedgies have bank accounts in tax havens like the Caymans is so they can AVOID declaring income in the US!

They're not called tax havens for nothing!

Bloomberg has bad news for Trump

Check out this headline at Bloomberg; Trump is losing the Davos primary among his fellow billionaires.

Yup, there's billionaires at Davos who are pretty darned sure Trump's gonna be gunning for them once he's done with the Muslims and the Mexicans!

How would that be a bad thing? Oh, for the billionaires maybe, but it's high time America stopped catering to the 1% anyway...

Or the .001%.

Anyway, the Davos primary isn't the one that matters...

Shimon Peres breaks bread with Palestinian counterpart at Davos

Well there you go.  And here I thought Davos was all about the super-rich figuring out how to grab what's left of our pension plans and grind our wages down to Haitian levels.

But no, it's not just the World Economic Forum, it's the World Peace Forum too. Good things can happen when adversaries sit down for a meal.

"How do like the cous-cous Shimon?"

Not bad, Saalam, but I must say the tabouli is more to my liking."

"Now about that separation wall..."

"Fence! You mean fence..."

"Wall!"

"FENCE!"

"SECURITY!!..."

Nathan Rothschild meets extra-terrestials at secret Davos meeting

And if you believe that, you're fucked in the head.

Actually, Nathan Rothschild just lost a libel case in Britain, proving again that while he might be a relatively rich guy, he too has feet of clay.

Who goes in for this nonsense that's pedelled all over the internet, about the Rothschilds and crop circles and the end of the world?

The elite control the world, that's true. That's why they're known as the elite.

But it's got nothing to do with the Illuminati or the Rothschilds or extra-terrestials or Davos or Bilderberg.

It's got everything to do with the fundamental intrinsic nature of capitalism.

Letting a few control everything is the logical outcome of how we allow capitalism to be practised.

There's nothing wrong with capitalism. There's never been a more efficient way of mobilizing human resources.

Problem is, left to its own devices, capitalism eventually eats its host. When you get to a place where vulture capitalists like Mitt Romney are held up as paragons of capitalist success, you have reached a tipping point.

Mitt Romney and the likes of Bain Capital don't enable capitalism; they destroy it.

There are huge swaths of society that will never be accomodated by winner-take-all capitalism.

The sick.

The poor.

The elderly.

Those marginalized for any reason.

That's why there needs to be a "we" to regulate capitalism.

Boycott Caterpillar!

In his speech at Davos last week Sweden's Finance Minister made a lot of unseemly and unwarranted comments about the situation in Greece.

But he also made a passing reference to "corporate responsibility", a concept that never took root in North America.

It is perhaps overly harsh to say it "never took root". Henry Ford was on the right track with his five dollar day.

Andrew Carnegie built a lot of libraries.

There is a long history of corporate capitalism in America in which a sense of responsibility to the community was at least a consideration in the decisions taken in corporate boardrooms.

Those days are long gone.

The attitude that prevails today is the one all too evident in Caterpillar's decision to close their Canadian locomotive works.

Fuck the workers.

Coming off the best year in its history, Caterpillar can hardly claim that worker concessions are necessary for the company's survival, and they aren't.

The move to shutter Electro-Motive is about nothing other than making an already profitable company even more profitable, and if that means sending 500 working class families to the food bank and onto the dole, so be it.

So you union guys who are climbing into Caterpillar equipment tomorrow, maybe you can give a thought to those 500 workers in London who are out of a job today.

Boycott Caterpillar!