The city of Fredericton NB, from what we know that cedar trees anecdotally around the old Government House, became victims of the chainsaws. The reason was given that it was recommended by the report “Crime Prevention through environmental design.
City crews commenced the dastardly act of removing these fifty-year-old trees, which were originally planted by the Garrison Club.
What is know is that this report was not made available to the public, and one councillor has stated that he never directly saw the report.
Because the city, as of date, refuses to make the report and the cost available to the public. There are no records of the agenda or the minutes of any meeting discussing these trees’ fate.
There are several different stories told why these trees were cut. One was to protect the Lieutenant governor from some terrorist attack; another reason was that people were defecating there and leaving spent drug needles. There those that say the trees were cut to discourage another tent city from being erected.
As a result of some different versions and interpretations, one does not really know why these healthy cedar trees were cut.
Several rights to information have been filed. The truth may be buried somewhere in the queried files.
Trump, following the deadly assault on Iran, has changed. I noticed that he is now using teleprompters, I saw two types of eye behaviour that suggests that he is reading a prompter, one is the frequency that he squints his eyes, the other the scanning of the eyes. I suspect that he has been ordered to tone down. However, this is just an inference. What I think maybe going behind the senses is that his republican supporters have told, “If you don’t do what we tell you will vote for your removal of office.
One day, he threatens to obliterate their cherished cultural centers. Then next day tells the Iranians how great of a people they are how rich their culture is and that he is not going to target Iranian cultural centers. Yet, at the same time, impeached president Trump tells them that more sanctions are coming against them. However, these sanctions do not affect the ruling class of Iran, but it is the people of Iran who end up suffering economically from the sanctions placed against them.
The only possible consequence of the sanctions levied against Iran is a revolt against the current Iranian regime blaming the regime for their economic hardships.
The revolts that that has recently taken place have demonstrated the consequence of past the prior sanctions and trade embargoes has had on Iran, for example, the price of fuel went beyond affordability for the average Iranian; they took out their frustrations on the government. So one can speculate that placing sanctions is get the Iranians to topple their government. Should the Iranians take aggressive action against their elites, you can expect a deadly response from the elites, which if this is the case, then Trump accomplished his end game of destabilizing that country to advance the American economic interests.
Taking everything into account that has developed over the last several months. It appears that “Trump dude” is stacking the deck to ultimately have a favourable outcome for himself, enabling him to crush his upcoming impeachment trial and winning a second term at the oval office. A second term, he will be free to do as he pleases.
Just recently a right whale calf has been spotted in the North Atlantic, so what is the big hoopla about this sighting? First, there about 450 right whales left, the decimation of the right whale in part was the result of overhunting. For the whaling industry, it was an “easy catch” because the right whale tends to be slow moving and at times comes close to the shore. Unlike the other whales when harpooned and killed the majority of them float.
Scientists from all over the world have reported an increase in the number of dead zones in the Atlantic ocean, the reason for the dead zones correlates with the warming of the Atlantic ocean. A dead zone is an area of oxygen depletion. The consequence is serious, plankton sinks to the bottom and decompose. In non-dead zones, plankton through photosynthesis produces oxygen that aquatic life needs to survive.
The right whale’s diet consists for the most part plankton, which is their primary food source.
The exodus to plankton-rich waters of the north sea is causing problems for the fishing industry. The federal has extended the no fish zone to areas where lobster fishers make their living which hasn’t been well received by the fishing industry.
Where is that balance where traditional industries can make a living yet not producing negative consequences to our environment?>
Moving away from fisheries, yet is still related, is the pipeline issue Transporting either fracked natural gas or bitumen from Alberta via supertankers to get to their destinations the risk of critical catastrophic spills increases. History has shown no matter how careful we are, and what legislation that is in place to prevent these disasters, these disasters still happen.
The problem with fossil fuel spills is that not only do they have the potential of destroying the lower end of the food chain but can close down or injure the fish industry as well.
In closing, what we do to one part of the environment causes an effect in another part of the closed system that we call our ecosystem.
To close, here is a list of animals that we have made extinct, or at minimum placed on the endangered list by hunting alone.
In our system of economics, the minimum wage is functional in controlling for inflation and for that reason, the minimum wage will always create a class working poor and create a loss of buying power in the higher wage earners.
What happens when the minimum is raised inflation goes up? As inflation goes up the bank of Canada increases the lending rate to control the rate of inflation. The consequence is that all the industries in the system raise their prices to offset the increase of wages and interest rates.
In essence, what we have is an endless loop which each time it cycles there is a loss of buying power.
How much one makes really isn’t a good measure of prosperity. A better measure is the buying power of wages earned. As buying power diminishes workers have to work more hours to pay for goods and services.
There was a time that a worker working for the minimum wage of 75 cents or less per hour had greater power buying power than today’s worker, who in New Brunswick makes 11.25 per hour. The loss of buying power effects every wage earner, the 20.00$ per hour wage earner wage doesn’t increase yet everything else increases so his/her wages gets closer to the minimum rate.
The result of the loss of buying power is that the supply and demand are also affected. Wage earners are buying less so the demand drops, and with a drop in demand, supply decreases as well. When supply decreases the frequency of layoff also increases resulting in less money to spend. This process will continue until the entire system fails.
Our economics is a system consisting of nodes, and whatever happens in one node affects all the other nodes of the system. An example nodes are the banking institution, industry, the wage earners, investors, the stock markets, human displacement technology and so on.
Our present system of economics is not sustainable and as a result, it will eventually collapse. To avoid the eventual collapse, we have to have the social and political will to change the system. In other words, we need to have the sociological imagination to resolve the wage issue as it relates to the consumer price index. The likelihood of such a change ever happening is possible, but highly improbable. The most likely reason why changes are highly unlikely is that they are too many stakeholders working for their own interest.
In summary, not including the price of fuel minimum wage contributes to inflation and a loss of buying power for the higher wage earners. While there are other factors which contribute to rising inflation such as willfully creating a shortage to boost prices the increase in the cost of production precipitated by increased wages is the dominant factor for the increase in inflation. Our system of economics is made of nodes, and each node can affect the whole system because whatever happens in one node cascades throughout the entire system. Lastly, each business is self-centered it only looks after its own interest and doesn’t acknowledge that it is part of a system.
The cycle of inflation is always greater than the cycle of deflation and if this process is allowed to continue the likelihood of catastrophic economic failure is possible.
Today in a press release the Bank of Canada has announced that it Is increasing lending rates to 1.5% to the retail banks. (“Bank of Canada raises overnight rate target to 1 ½ percent”, 2018). So what does that mean for the average Joe/Jane on the streets, well it means that if you are taking out a loan or credit today your interest payment will increase by 1.5 % and if you add it to compound interest then that number becomes significant.
Before going on, let’s turn the pages back and look at the role of the Bank of Canada before I get into today’s announcement.
Let’s go back to 1938 to the year 1974, Canada was borrowing from itself at interest-free loans, which allowed Canada to be very prosperous. So as a result of these loans Canada developed quite substantially, with the money created being used to build highways such as the McDonald-Cartier freeway, public transportation systems, subway lines, airports, the St. Lawrence Seaway, funding the universal healthcare system, and the Canadian Pension Plan and so on.
In 1973 Trudeau’s government decided to stop borrowing from the Bank of Canada at interest-free to the retail commercial banks who charge interests. Here is where it gets crazy because of it the Bank of Canada who sets the interest rates. How rational is that?
After Canada started to borrow from the commercial banks is when we see Canada’s debt load increase to where it is at today.
Obviously, Trudeau did not follow the wisdom of Mackenzie King himself who had once said,
“ Once a nation parts with the control of its currency and credit, it matters not who makes the nation’s laws. Usury, once in control, will wreck any nation. Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most sacred responsibility, all talk of sovereignty of parliament and of democracy is idle and futile.
So here we are at today’s announcement, basically, the Bank of Canada said it would increase the interest by 1.5 % which means that the Federal, Provincial and municipal government will now even pay more interest on interest. For Canadians especially those seniors on Fixed income and if their mortgage is up for renewal there is a likely hood that they will not be able to pay the new rates, and lose their home to the banks.
Both Trudeau and Gallant inject a considerable amount of money into the economy which did stimulate economic growth people had more money so they were spending more.
This interests increase is going to remove money and buying power from the people which we should see all of the efforts to strengthen our economy go down the toilet bowl. It is expecting that the bank of Canada will have another rate increase in September.
The only winners in this are the banks. Let follow Mackenzie king approaches to economics where the country, the provinces and the manipulates don’t pay interests on interest but pay the Bank of Canada like the old day’s interest-free.
The Left Eye 