Uncategorized

Whistleblowers Fired In B.C.

You may have read the story. Word is that close to 20 civil servants in B.C. have been fired in the context of voicing concerns over public spending. Imagine that. Results from an investigation proceeded and ultimately two individuals were escorted from the legislature.

Let’s think this through:

 We all know that Canadians are over taxed with a top marginal rate in Alberta of 49 per cent income tax.  Yes, that’s just income tax and doesn’t include excise taxes, property taxes, or GST.  In fact, many of your fellow citizens of high net worth leave the maple leaf behind for residence elsewhere due to the excess of Canadian tax.

Now let’s consider our politicians who have done absolutely zilch in decades to materially reduce the personal income tax burden. It hasn’t mattered their stripe because once any politician has achieved office – the best interests of taxpayers have been lost amidst the expanse of bureaucratic largesse. Ralph Klein in Alberta is one noted exception who took on public sector unions and saved the public purse from calamity. Unfortunately, his legacy has been undone.    

How about the receptivity of public officials to your discontentment with the tax burden? It obviously hasn’t translated. For bureaucrats as evidenced by this sequence of events in the B.C. legislature to be  negligent with the treatment of sacred tax dollars to the extent that they would  enact measures of self protection of their behavior through non-disclosure agreements should in my estimation be equivalent to fraud and corruption. Yes, corruption in Canada.  

Uncategorized

Nakiska’s Charm

The things I like about Nakiska are mountainous scenes, guaranteed snow (snow making), unrushed morning travel, friendly feel, and affordability.  I’m grateful to be back on some boards that give me better manoeuvrability in the bumps having had my old Head Monster 88’s lifted at COP last winter and then experiencing lesser performing substitutes.  Speaking of Monsters, the Monster Glades is where I tested these refurbished K2 Axis skis yesterday (snap enclosed) given that other bump runs were in quite poor shape.  These skis were acquired thanks to the empathy of ski friend OB having learned of my COP misfortune. Thanks OB!

Not all the kids were absent due to school yesterday (Friday). Canada games trials were taking place for slalom enthusiasts. No, this was not the course they were on (snap) but surprisingly this had been set up on Lower Mapmaker for training. Yes, I veered off course for the photographic moment.

I’m establishing a nice collection of Nakiska photos given my leisurely annual weekday forays and in fact the experience leads me to think about bringing a tripod along one day to step up the seriousness of capturing the beautiful scenery. A “Go Pro” for my helmut perhaps. Stay tuned.  I’m reminded of the esteemed Warren Miller who with his team had taken phenomenal footage of ski terrain throughout the world and inspired youth to take up the sport.

Monster Glades 011119
Decent considering snow pack.
Workshop – Refurbishing skis
Economics, Politics

Trudeau’s Year Ending News Conference and The Pipeline

 Not that I’m a fan of Justin Trudeau’s politics but he certainly outperformed the journalists posing questions today. I give Trudeau credit for his thoughtfulness, tact and consistency in articulating positions. He is certainly well spoken. Naturally, the security concerns of Canadians travelling abroad are important, but half the question period was unfortunately taken up by short sighted reporters fixated on the news of the day. Certainly, these reporters should have known they wouldn’t have received any more than what Trudeau was able to give on the topic of the Chinese detention of Canadians.  Instead issues of provincial jurisdiction, taxation, military deployments, veteran’s affairs, government debt, social program spending, and the justice system were not covered.

However; the matter of national unity was actually raised because it’s the knee jerk way of responding to real behaviour of politicians more focused on regional interests than the national interest. The prospect of transporting oil from Alberta to the west coast through pipelines is simple businessand simple economics. Certainly, as a first world country with professionals qualified to construct and maintain a pipeline safely inside an industrial regulatory framework established through decades of first world development experience, this should get done now in the spirit of Canada’s national interest with the enthusiastic cooperation of indigenous people. Just as a reminder…the hard working high tax-paying citizens of Canada grant indigenous people with special exemptions through land and tax not available to non-indigenous Canadians.  Your country also has the right to expropriate your land, garnish your wage, and freeze your bank account. Yet, today your federal government is frozen in time with respect to deploying an asset that you now own, namely the Trans Canada Pipeline.

Apparently, there are some sea mammals that must be accommodated out there on the prospective port. I’m thinking that these sea mammal’s interests could be represented while the pipe is being laid. Lawyers…. well they apparently require a lot more hand holding to save them from their naval gazing and obfuscation through technical legal bafflegab. There comes a timewhen common sense, progress, and economic expansion must supersede bureaucratic bungling.          

Economics, Free Enterprise

JP Morgan Chase In Hot Seat Over Precious Metals

It’s been a contentious issue over fifteen years in the investment community. Are precious metals markets rigged? If you’ve never heard of GATA (Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee) I suppose it’s about time they get some credit for quiet behind the scenes research into irregular trading patterns of precious metals on the COMEX and LME. GATA has in fact appeared before U.S. law makers on the topic of market rigging during the period in which this alleged illicit trading was conducted. Did the U.S. government significantly digest claims made by GATA through GATA’s research? How could the U.S. Senate draft a 396 page report entitled “Wall Street Bank Involvement with Physical Commodities” having not discovered any of these trades though which allegedly number in the “thousands”.

The news….JP Morgan appears (a plea at minimum so far) to be guilty of conducting illicit futures trades in precious metals as reported by CNBC on December 13, 2018 and in fact there is a reference in the article to the trades by an employee of the firm as being conducted with the consent and direct knowledge of his immediate supervisors. A class action law suit is underway representing those who traded the futures precious metals markets between 2009 and 2015.

Chris Powell of GATA speculates in his December 18, 2018 article whether gold mining companies who have reason to trade futures in order to hedge production will participate. Mr. Powell goes on to elaborate why the gold mining industry has been reluctant to postulate about market rigging. Austrian economists could expound greatly on motives for the suppression of the gold price.    

Not surprisingly, we’ve seen the gold price rise to a six month high today. The big question will become…how far up the chain of command will we discover complicity in the conduct of this bank employee?     w

Politics, Lifes Lessons, Personal Development

All This Hatred

I woke up this morning to a USA Today headline “The man is pathetic”: Giuliani attacks Cohen. My gut tells me that those spewing such vitriolic comments likely have ethical dilemmas themselves which brew underneath a bravado like facade.  This seems to be the new normal in politics. In an era past when differences of opinion could be debated with intelligence and unwritten rules of conduct, it’s now all out unfiltered attack based on emotionally planted self centred ego driven applause seeking irrationality.

It’s quite obvious to the bystander that Trump’s ex lawyer Cohen succumbed to heat applied by Trump during tenuous transactions arising from Trump’s business and personal conduct. In the remote chance you haven’t been witnessing Trump’s bully like conduct and visceral need to react intensely to any slight against him through his twitter account, never mind his propensity to litigate contractors in business, you can easily formulate through a “paint by numbers” like puzzle that this seems to be a man who takes every occasion to wield financial power regardless of ethical implications. Now, he is facing the music as he deserves. I had actually seen enough simply through his conduct in the election campaign that this was a man unfit for office. In spite of nepotism rules, Trump somehow determined that his daughter and son in law despite their youth and inexperience in governmental affairs would be apt “Advisers to the President”. I actually believe the man has some merit and humanity behind his veil which has unfortunately been voided by aberration.  

I suggest that Mr. Giuliani’s propensity to defend thePresident has more to do with his own need to have his ego stroked than anymisplaced loyalty. There are men who reach their twilight years and still donot discover the means to bypass this ego laden short circuitingmechanism. 

Upon posting, I thought this might go in my blog categorization of “personal development”.  Wink.