Is Nigel Wright culpable? In one word and in my opinion, yes. Our courts are now investigating this tawdry affair of cover up perpetrated from the office of our Prime Minister. Nigel Wright knew what he was doing and he is apparently a man of intellect having earned large sums of money in the private sector as a business man. He attempted to make a bad situation go away by paying back money to our government on behalf of a government colleague. Had Mr. Wright not been aware why this debt of a colleague had arisen, and a personal loan was made to colleague, Mike Duffy, then there would be no culpability for breach of trust. Had there been full disclosure to the auditor general with respect to the repayment of funds via predetermined protocol given the circumstance along with a statement from Mr. Duffy that he had a misunderstanding of travel expense allowances, us taxpayers through the courts may not have been dragged into this legal affair. Instead it was ego and naivety on full display. Ego with respect to fellow politicians wanting to castigate Duffy for their own sense of inflated righteousness and Mr. Wright’s naivety for an earnest desire to help but from a place of paternalism thinking that us Canadians need not to have known that something unbecoming of our institution was unfolding. Somebody should have been approving these expense accounts before payment. It will be interesting to see if there were breached internal controls at work and why? Sanctions for Wright? My impression of him is that he had good intentions and my sense is that he became disoriented from good judgment due to variables that may have been operating inside the Prime Ministers office.
McCain Unnerves Trump
Neither Trump nor McCain have apparently read chapter two of “How To Win Friends and Influence People”. Hurling insults is always cause for grief. Having followed American politics for some time, I can espouse with confidence that John McCain loves hearing himself speak almost as much as Trump. In McCain’s zeal to cast condemnation on Trump over Trump’s bizarre presentation of the illegal immigration issue, he himself has emblazoned a target on his chest as do all soldiers when they step up to the front line of battle. Had McCain less frequently made reference to his military service while addressing the senate on matters of national security, and less frequently made appearances on the Sunday morning talk show circuit, perhaps Trump’s sarcasm would have been muted. I underscore, “perhaps” because the handlers are obviously of the opinion that allowing him to free wheel at the mic have been serving polls well to date.
Rick Perry has tweeted that, Trump in this latest suggestion that a captured McCain is not a war hero amount to Trump being unfit as a candidate for the presidency. You can guarantee that the Trump campaign will be firing back that Perry is unfit given his big brain freeze during debating for the candidacy during the last presidential run at which time Perry excused himself given a prescription medicine regime.
I have never been so entertained while watching folks debase themselves of intelligence while running for the highest office in the land. Apparently much of Trump’s appeal has arisen due to use of cut off sentences, interjection, and hyperbole as particularly illustrated by his favourite word “disaster”.
Does Trump have the gall for allocating resources for researching McCain’s military service as means of resurrecting apparent breaches in his own credibility? Will the term “swiftboating” return as a term bandied by pundits during this latest trek for top spot – this time among Republicans?
Trump Hosts Families Impacted By Illegal Immigrants
It’s a Friday night in July in Beverly Hills and while many are packing up for the cottage, Donald Trump stands alongside devastated families mournful from the loss of loved ones at the hand of illegal immigrants. One by one the stories are shared at the microphone and Donald stands to the side listening attentively. Apparently, justice officials had not been listening as effectively as Trump had tonight when those heart crushed souls poured their stories out to a U.S justice system which has seemingly been ill equipped to effectively sanction perpetrators of crime whom are void of an I.D number.
You can say what you want about Donald Trump’s political incorrectness, but his stinging clarity around substantive matters deserves credit. It’s high time that the political elite assuaged by liberal media come to learn distinctively about what irks the populous when the punditry is turned off. Mr. Trump is skilfully garnering tremendous free campaign fodder as his adversaries cower in their public opinion of his message. He arguably reasoned out the semantics of his words chosen during his campaign launch speech and with 7,000 apparent folks stationed at the ready to head downtown Phoenix on the weekend to hear something of his plan to stem the flow of illegal immigrants across the border, the presidential contender obviously has many Latino and African American folks believing that he’s not deserving of the racist label eagerly sought by journalists.
I was nearly drawn to tears listening to these stories tonight. The occasion of this multi-billionaire standing arm in arm with middle Americans baring their souls to a press corps was simply surreal. Things are getting very interesting in the U.S. political arena.
Malinvestment Rising
Even if you’ve studied macroeconomics 101 back in the day, you may not have heard the term. Keynesian theorists bread from state sponsored academia are not oriented to hypothesize that investments can go wrong and can be counter-productive to a long term economic benefit. Today China faces the financial effect of amortizing vacant industrial complexes financed through non-transparent means as eloquently described by Jim Rickards in his book “The Death of Money”. Mr. Rickards claims that this phenomenon is not in and of itself a financial risk of devastating proportions to the Chinese banking sector but when matched up with other elitist transgressions in stimulating economic growth, perilous conditions have become beset. Mr. Rickards goes on to exemplify the flight of capital out of China by those instinctive purveyors of wealth who have concluded that all is not well in the Chinese banking system.
Apparently, it’s not only the western world which endorses the free flowing off balance sheet derivative market but the Chinese have become adept at putting it to work in helping Chinese savers acquire better returns than the near zero bank rate offered today. In spite of the 2008 financial crisis, Gobalresearch.ca now reports that the notional outstanding derivative book is twenty per cent higher now than it was back in 2008 and that Goldman Sachs alone carried $48 trillion dollars in derivatives at the end of 2013. The mortgage variety of derivatives were largely the cause of the 2008 financial crisis.
Do Pick At Least “A” Battle
Sure you should “pick battles wisely”, but if you do not stand and fight for what you validate as worthy, then a slippery cascading slope of mediocrity, aloofness, and presumption may leak into every and all association or relationship which has meaning in your life. Then if others also stand down at every turn, a dichotomy is formed between the organized powerful and the disenfranchised powerless. You, by virtue of your breath and thought have power yet you cede it far too often. You opine inwardly that it’s not your fight and that other more charismatic leaders are better positioned to engage. You are wrong. Your passion when harnessed has a way of creating eloquence. You’ve been conditioned to feel like you’re ill equipped to be an arbiter of your affairs by those who posture as if they have your best interests at heart when in fact they selfishly seek their own agenda.
Freedom isn’t free. The more you cede the more you risk. The more you hesitate in ambivalence, the more you cower to the elite. Still caring about what other people think? If so, your subconscious mind is blocking your passion for seeking engagement in the worthy. Vibrate with purity when your cause is stirred and your fellow man will walk alongside in gratitude.