Category Archives: Free Enterprise

Free Enterprise, Politics

Venezuela Right Now

  1. Hyperinflation rate so astronomical you won’t believe it
  2. Water shortage
  3. Food shortage
  4. Civil strife
  5. Rolling black outs
  6. Russia installs military presence taking sides with Nicolas Maduro
  7. U.S. contemplates aid and incidentally has sided with declared President Juan Guaido
  8. Journalists arrested
  9. Socialist policy since Chavez leaderships in 1999

If you eliminate incentives for business to produce goods and services, they will stop. If you pay people not to produce, they will not produce. If you do not sanction poor behavior, people will continue to behave badly. If you overregulate the ambitious, they will turn elsewhere for a market. If you condone corruption, you will get more of it. If you sense injustice and fail to acknowledge it, you will subscribe to the status quo. If you witness crime and fail to report it, you are complicit. If your leadership is ambivalent toward justice, your society is regressing.

Free Enterprise, Politics

Governments Giving To Business

Here we go again with government “investments” in business with a $100 million nest egg courtesy of you the taxpayer for new technologies (artificial intelligence) which apparently is such a sought after space that the private sector isn’t interested.

This is what’s happening. Very poor decisions were made regarding the construction of new office towers in the downtown core of Calgary leading to a 30 per cent vacancy. Obstructionist policy from governments in the oil and gas sector has impeded business from expanding into these new commercial spaces. Now, you the taxpayer are going to pay the price for “malinvestment”. That’s right. Governments have historically been poor investors because politicians don’t personally have any skin in the game. Politicians cater to special interest groups and are amenable to influence from effective lobbyists.

When was the last time your government presented you with a performance statement in lieu of a benefit to you arising from their investment decisions in the private sector? You guessed it – never. There is no accountability.

The unremarkable thing about “capitalism” is that people and businesses fail because of poor investment decisions. The backdrop of a failure potential has the effect of scrutinizing capital carefully for its most efficient deployment.

This decision made by bureaucrats with your money is not sound but there is desperation in the corridors of governments because pension funds with equity interests in Alberta office towers are clamouring.

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

Philosophy, Free Enterprise

The Success Sabotage Game

Having just about put a wrap on a very good book this weekend in the personal development genre, I reflect on experiences and relationships all while laying down a new guitar riff. I have things in the office to do on this beautiful summer weekend but the philosopher in me has taken over.

I took up Dean Graziosi on his offer to attend a free seminar and get a meal and book on him. I enjoy seminars as a way of gauging my mindset in the context of others who have achieved successes and wish to share while prepared for “the catch”. Typically, presenters deliver on their word as has Dean.

I’ve yet to gain a full understanding of the man’s history but I certainly do appreciate his sincerity in his book, “Millionaire Success Habits”. What I do know is that he put real estate to work and applied Tony Robbins’ principles in acquiring results. While others were challenged by the no doc mortgage debacle and economic pessimism in 2009, Dean apparently snapped up properties.

My message today surrounds the power of the pragmatic mind developed through failure and the social acclimatization toward risk avoidance. Frankly, the attendance of a seminar pertaining to wealth related concepts in Canadian society is mostly viewed as gullible or naive as opposed to entrepreneurially provocative. The propensity to defer to a messenger’s motive syncs with the suspicion entrenched within a society’s affinity toward liberalism. 

You know that folks seek solace in the shortcomings of others.  You hear it at work and you see it in headlines littered through websites encouraging your clicks. Marketers even target your need to be soothed.  There is a cultural aberration at play which must be called out and identified in your mind in order for the full force of your individualism to be actualized. I’m talking about the influence of this phenomenon in your mind as young as preschool. Negativity abounds and you are better equipped to handle it when you become attuned to its source.

Oh ya…the book, “Millionaire Success Habits” by Dean Graaziosi.              

Economics, Free Enterprise

Retailers Losing To Amazon

Now Wholesale Sports is closing down. They needed to build nice pretty looking stores when blocks of strip mall space lay vacant. They needed to carry excessive inventory with an extravagant in store merchandising effort and little public promotion. I think retailers in Western Canada need to rethink the way they do business before Amazon sucks up the whole space and governments better get on board with business before urban centres become boarded up black holes.

As I write this, the Marlborough mall in North East Calgary has no less than six closed retailers in the one wing which used to host Sears. Part of the blame must go to the mall for failing to exercise flexibility in a newer retail environment. Given what merchants are paying for mall space, it seems obvious that the only companies that can make it work are the well financed large establishments which can cross fund from multiple geographic outlets.

Amazon is a success story. I use them and they’ve never let me down. In fact, cities across North America as we speak are clamouring for the opportunity to be chosen as Amazon’s “second headquarters”. What is to become of strip malls and shopping malls if a business friendly environment is not provided to bricks and mortar retail establishments across Canada? Perhaps, they should be shuttered? Perhaps, there’s a social kind of slant on “going to the mall” which we want to uphold? I don’t think I really know the answer for sure but it seems that the destruction of malls in favour of an alternate use may be net negative in terms of economic utility.