Twisting Poilievre to Make Him Break

 

Pierre Poilievre is stepping on a few toes……a lot of them actually, if the comments of journalists and other Conservatives offer clues. I find that he is being attacked by people who should know better. They are twisting his message.

The two main issues of the attacks seem to be Poilievre’s promise to fire the Governor of The Bank of Canada and his assessment of the cause of inflation.

I hear Conservatives and journalists alike accuse Poilievre of wanting to compromise the independence of the central bank by political interference. It’s nonsense. First, it is the PM that appoints the Governor. How is that not political interference? But second, and this is the big one, Poilievre’s lament is that Tiff Macklem compromised the independence of the central bank when he expanded the bank’s assets by the same amount and at the same rate as the Trudeau government was running a deficit. The Trudeau gang wanted an annual deficit of $150,000,000,000, and the Bank of Canada expanded the money supply by that amount to comply. How is that right? The Governor is tasked with avoiding inflation of more than 2% per annum, and he expands the money supply by far more. He knows better, and if he doesn’t, he should not have the job. Either way, he is not fit for the post. Poilievre wants a Bank governor that has a backbone --- someone who will resist political pressure.

People defend Macklem by saying that inflation is a worldwide problem. Effectively, it’s okay that he went along with the crowd instead of doing what’s right. This country now has a lot of hungry people because of that behavior. But NO, inflation is caused by high oil prices, the Ukraine war, disrupted supply chains, and anything else that doesn’t cause it. That’s the silliness being fed to the public now. Do a little thought experiment. If there is a fixed amount of money available, and people are spending more of it on gasoline, then they will have to spend less on other things such as food items. In a more or less free market, prices bring supply and demand into an equilibrium. Almost all food items have substitutes; therefore, demand for any particular food item is elastic. If you have less money to spend on a food item because you filled your gas tank, you will buy less because you have less money with which to make the purchase. Suppliers will tend to drop the price to achieve economic equilibrium. Higher oil prices will tend to make lower movie ticket prices, as a hypothetical example. Inflation is the result of an increased money supply when there is not a corresponding increase in the production of goods and services.

Poilievre is trying to bring reality into the dialogue. I hope he persuades enough people that he can become CPC leader and subsequently PM. Let’s see if he can stick with his principles. If so, this country may have a brighter future than it does under the progressive socialist coup that is based on the principle of sharing the poverty.

What is Putin's Aim?

 

Russia has its ups and downs. It has been invaded at least four dozen times, and the invasions have typically come through nine gaps in the terrain on the edges of Russia. If the world was a peaceful place, the lack of Russian control of the gaps might not concern Putin. Russia has typically not known peace with the rest of the world during my lifetime. I think back, for example, to that period of 1995 to 1998. The Soviet Union had collapsed and so had the Russian economy. The ruble should have been devalued, but the IMF exerted pressure on Russia to maintain the ruble’s value, thereby choking its economy (Russian products were priced too high for export, while imports took the place of domestic consumption of Russian made goods). The poverty level went from 2% to 40% and the average life expectancy of the Russian male went from 78 years to 55 years. It is tempting to think that such was the crucible in which Putin’s ambitions were formed. I suspect he wants to make sure that the world can never dictate to Russia again. One way to do that is to plug those gaps. The biggest is the European Plain which is about 3000 kilometers wide in western Russia, but narrows in the north to about 250 kilometers just east of Warsaw, and in the south sees its narrowing where Moldova meets Romania. Bucharest sits in the middle of the southwestern opening to the gap. I think Putin’s aim is to take Ukraine so that he has easy access to Warsaw and Bucharest. Plug those gaps.

Taking Ukraine also removes an unfriendly border much further west. As it stands, Ukraine is less than 500 kilometers from Moscow. One can see why Russia does not want NATO forces on Ukrainian territory.

The implication of the foregoing is that Ukraine is a stepping stone and that eventually, Russia will kinetically clash with NATO countries. Poland was the line in the sand in advance of World War II. It seems it may be again. It is very important for the West to bog Russia down in the Ukraine so that invasion of Poland and Romania becomes impractical.

Hence the West sends weapons to Ukraine.  But there are problems with doing so. I see this Reuters report on Russia last week destroying a large cache of weapons from the west stored in Odessa: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-it-destroyed-odesa-terminal-where-foreign-weapons-were-stored-2022-04-23/.

Even when weapons are supplied, making them effective is a major challenge. What if they are destroyed in storage? What if logistics are such that the weapons don’t make it to the battlefields in time? What if the weapons arrive, but the troops do not know how to use them?  What if the troops know how to use them, but have taken so many casualties by the time the weapons arrive that there is not enough manpower to deploy the weapons effectively? Each of these problems can be magnified by Russian intervention. 

It is hard to see the war ending soon. A problem is that the longer the war drags on, the more it appears, particularly to Russia’s population, that Russia is losing. Putin cannot afford to lose. If he thinks he is losing, will he withdraw with his tail between his legs, or will he choose the nuclear option? But if he wins in Ukraine, he will likely continue into NATO lands, which also could easily lead to nuclear weapons usage.

In the meantime, Russia grows richer. Think of it: when Russia is earning billions of dollars monthly for its oil and gas exports, but not spending anything on imports, its monetary reserves are going to rise quickly. This enables Russia to afford war.

China is quietly becoming increasingly sympathetic towards Russia. Soon it may seem like Russia and China against the world. “Just you and me, Babe.” They have similar views on how to control their populaces. They are both ruthless in dealing with peoples they are oppressing. They have similar demographic collapses. They share a 4300 kilometer border. I am reminded of the prophecy of Daniel 11, where in verse 44 we find that “news out of the east and out of the north” leads to a great war that is elsewhere called Armageddon. To the east and to the north of the near east, which is the geographical focal point of the Bible, are China and Russia. Just saying…...

Slavery In the World Today

 

I was just watching a video about the history of slavery and myths about it, presented by a black academic at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NO_wmixXBdE. As she points out, slavery still exists. I think you would be hard pressed to find a Muslim country anywhere that does not have slaves. That was one of the main points made years ago by the movie Slave Trade in the World Today. But the worst offenders are not Muslim. According to a modern documentary found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2FSPdgEguk, there are 45 million slaves today, the largest slaveholder being the government of North Korea. China has over 3 million slaves according to this report, but India is reported to have over 18 million slaves. There are charities that aim to lift people out of slavery, and they are not all as tainted as the one run by the Kielburgers. Consider helping out one of them.