On April 20 & 21 of 2024, beginning each day at approximately 1:00 AM CDT and lasting for approximately 4 hours.

It keeps the deficit capped at $40 billion, but introduces new taxes that largely offset billions in new spending. Here is what the economists say about changes to the capital gains tax.

Canada's federal budget 2024 means high-worth individuals, corporations and trusts will pay more in capital gains taxes , which some economists say will be another blow to Canada's already dismal productivity .

"Canada's productivity is in crisis and the best way to get it back up is to attract new investments," said Renaud Brossard, vice-president of communications at the Montreal Economic Institute in a statement after the budget. "And few are those who have been able to lure investments and job creators with promises of higher taxes.
"With this budget, the Trudeau government is shooting us in the foot."

The inclusion rate increases to 66 per cent, up from 50 per cent, on capital gains above $250,000 for individuals and on all capital gains for corporations and trusts. The change is expected to yield an additional $19.4 billion over four years.

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce said not only did the tax changes add to businesses' burden, the budget also lacked a clear plan to promote productivity and economic growth.

"We oppose any measure which will increase the costs for businesses and Canadians when both are currently experiencing challenging economic headwinds," said Jessica Brandon-Jepp, senior director of the Chamber's fiscal and financial services policy.

"Throttling the success of Canadian businesses with new taxes will limit opportunities and employment for Canadians, putting economic growth and productivity even further out of reach," she said.

Canada is in the midst of a "prolonged slump" in capital spending and in that environment the capital gains tax changes are "at best unhelpful in promoting capital investment that Canada desperately needs," said economists at Toronto Dominion Bank.

"Consider the decision of an entrepreneur deciding where to locate their start-up," said the team led by chief economist Beata Caranci.

"We oppose any measure which will increase the costs for businesses and Canadians when both are currently experiencing challenging economic headwinds," said Jessica Brandon-Jepp, senior director of the Chamber's fiscal and financial services policy.

"Throttling the success of Canadian businesses with new taxes will limit opportunities and employment for Canadians, putting economic growth and productivity even further out of reach," she said.

Canada is in the midst of a "prolonged slump" in capital spending and in that environment the capital gains tax changes are "at best unhelpful in promoting capital investment that Canada desperately needs," said economists at Toronto Dominion Bank.

"Consider the decision of an entrepreneur deciding where to locate their start-up," said the team led by chief economist Beata Caranci.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/topstories/canada-s-capital-gains-tax-hike-another-blow-to-productivity-say-economists/ar-BB1lJYsL?ocid=mailsignout&pc=U591&cvid=f1b17aaabbb34639b1b326e8b9798868&ei=41

Canada is facing a productivity crisis. This budget only exacerbates the problem.

The Bank of Canada is warning that waning productivity growth in the country is an "emergency" that can force higher interest rates and limit rising wages for Canadians.

Senior deputy governor Carolyn Rogers gave a speech in Halifax on Tuesday in which she sounded the alarm on Canada's lagging productivity rates.

Rogers argued that productivity is a way to "inoculate the economy against inflation," while sustaining "faster growth, more jobs and higher wages." An economy with strong inflation also does not need to rely as much on interest rates when price pressures start to get out of hand, she said.

But Canadian productivity rates have fallen in six consecutive quarters despite signs of an uptick at the end of 2023, Rogers said, citing Statistics Canada data.
"You've seen those signs that say, 'In emergency, break glass.' Well, it's time to break the glass," she told the crowd.

Productivity can be measured in a few ways, but in general it's the level of economic output per hour worked. Improving productivity doesn't necessarily mean Canadians working harder, but rather equipping them with the tools they need to accomplish more in the same amount of time, Rogers said.

One of the main issues dragging down Canadian productivity rates is a lack of business investment. Canadian businesses routinely lag their global counterparts when it comes to investment in machinery, equipment and intellectual property, she noted.

Rogers pointed to a lack of competition across Canada's industries as not driving companies to invest.

Businesses also need more certainty in the Canadian policy environment to be able to invest confidently in their operations, Rogers added. Canada is also "too often" failing to make proper use of skilled newcomers joining the labour pool, she said, which has major implications for productivity rates.

"And too often these people wind up stuck in low-wage, low-productivity jobs. Doing better at matching jobs and workers is crucial to the future of Canada's economy," she said.

The Bank of Canada is set to make its next interest rate decision on April 10. Annual inflation has cooled to 2.8 per cent, according to the latest report but the central bank has said it wants confidence that inflation will cool all the way back to its two per cent target before it eases the policy rate from its current elevated levels.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/weak-productivity-is-an-economic-emergency-bank-of-canada-warns/ar-BB1kyEAh?ocid=mailsignout&pc=U591&cvid=9a08c015a5404fdf8f9721617d6cdfde&ei=10#

I have been warning about this for years. The problem has been exacerbated in the last ten years by Trudeau's anti investment policies.

We either change this or we accept reduced and continuously declining living standards.

Punjabi music is taking the world by storm and its new sound is based in Canada

Over the past few years, a new generation of Punjabi performers has emerged from Canada with a unique fusion of cross-cultural influences that could've only come from this country.

The Punjabi wave, as some call it, is a blend of the Indo-Aryan language with elements of global hip-hop, R&B and trap music. In Canada, its popularity is led by an array of names including AP Dhillon, Karan Aujla, Gurinder Gill and producer Ikky.

These artists, helped by a tight-knit community of music professionals, have scaled India and Canada's charts, launched major tours and left some in the industry wondering if Punjabi music is on the cusp of its breakout moment akin to what "Gangnam Style" and "Despacito" did for Korean and Spanish-language pop music.

This weekend, two rising stars of the Punjabi-Canadian music scene head to Halifax for the Juno Awards, where they vie for the fan choice prize alongside pop's biggest names, including the Weeknd and Tate McRae.

Karan Aujla, whose track "Softly" certified the British Columbia-raised singer as a hitmaker last year, will compete with rapper Shubh, a Brampton, Ont.-based artist known for his streaming hits "One Love" and "Cheques." The fan choice award is handed out at the end of Sunday's CBC Junos broadcast.

This is a pivotal moment for the Punjabi genre, which has never been represented in the marquee Junos category, which aims to capture the zeitgeist. Aujla holds a second Juno nod for breakthrough artist this year.

All of this comes as the genre's profile continues to rise in Canada.

Outside the country, the Punjabi music industry has taken notice. Next month, India-based performer Diljit Dosanjh launches an arena and stadium tour that rolls through five Canadian cities, starting in Vancouver and ending in Toronto.

"This is just the tip of the iceberg," said Toronto rapper AR Paisley, who appears on "Drippy."

"With what's happening, we're going to see a lot of young and talented artists on the come up."
https://kitchener.citynews.ca/2024/03/21/punjabi-music-is-taking-the-world-by-storm-and-its-new-sound-is-based-in-canada/

Joe Biden's brother James testified that he sent Joe a $40,000 check with funds originating from Chinese conglomerate CEFC.

James Biden testified in February for the House GOP's impeachment inquiry into President Biden and admitted the $40,000 check he and his wife Sara wrote his brother in September 2017 used money that came from CEFC, according to a transcript released by the Oversight and Judiciary Committees.

The string of transactions resulting in the $40,000 check began in August 2017 when Hunter Biden's Owasco account received a $400,000 payment from Hudson West III, a joint venture CEFC launched with Hunter and James Biden at the time, bank records show. Hudson West III began in August 2017 with a $5 million cash infusion from a Chinese firm and the Bidens agreed to make $165,000 per month combined from the venture.

A memo written by IRS investigators in 2022 summarizing an interview with James Biden indicates Hunter Biden touted CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming as a "protege" of Chinese Communist Party Ruler Xi Jinping.

South Korea currently has the world's lowest fertility rate, with women having less than one child on average.

The drop in South Korea's fertility rate over the past few years results from the "4B Movement," with the B's representing the Korean words bihon, bichulsan, biyeonae, and bisekseu for marriage, childbirth, dating, and sex respectively.

The 4B Movement: South Korean Women Rejecting Traditional Expectations

In 2019, the 4B Movement emerged in South Korea, it's been getting a lot of notice on TikTok, gaining more traction and sparking debate.

This movement's central tenets challenge deeply ingrained societal norms, advocating that women should reject the following:

Bihon: Heterosexual marriage
Bichulsan: Childbirth
Biyeonae: Dating men
Bisekseu: Heterosexual relationships
Unraveling the Roots of the 4B Movement

The 4B Movement stems from a complex mix of social, economic, and cultural factors that have created a climate of deep-seated discontent and also rage among many young South Korean women, including:

Persistent Patriarchy & Misogyny: Despite South Korea's position as a developed, modernized nation, patriarchal structures are deeply embedded in its society. Women often face discrimination in the workplace, are pressured to conform to unrealistic beauty standards (Korea is the #1 country for plastic surgery procedures), and carry a disproportionate burden of domestic labor and childcare.
Economic Hardships and Disillusionment: South Korea's hyper-competitive economy and the skyrocketing cost of living have made it increasingly difficult to form families and raise children. Many young women feel disillusioned with the lack of opportunities and the expectation that their primary role should be as wives and mothers.
The #MeToo Reckoning: The global #MeToo movement had a significant impact on South Korea, exposing widespread sexual harassment and violent assault with little reprehension or justice by authorities. This ignited a broader critique of gender inequality and inspired women to demand greater autonomy and bodily agency.
Online Feminist Communities: Social media has empowered feminist movements in South Korea. These platforms raise awareness, help share personal experiences, and organize around common causes. The 4B movement has found fertile ground in these spaces with people around the globe.
The Evolution of South Korean Feminism

The 4B movement can be understood as part of a broader trajectory within South Korean feminism.

Previous feminist movements, like the Escape the Corset movement, focused primarily on challenging unrealistic beauty standards and the objectification of women.

The 4B movement expands on this, taking a more radical stance against the entire institution of heterosexual marriage and the traditional family structure within South Korean society.

Criticisms and Concerns

The 4B movement is not without its critics of course, with detractors arguing that it:

Is Too Extreme: Some argue that the movement's total rejection of heterosexual relationships and reproduction is too extreme and unrealistic.

Contributes to Low Fertility Rates: There are concerns that the 4B philosophy could further contribute to South Korea's alarmingly low birth rate, posing demographic challenges for the country.

Oversimplifies Complex Issues: Others find its stance overly simplistic, ignoring the diversity of women's experiences and the potential for positive partnerships with men.

Implications of the 4B Movement
There are valid concerns related to the plummeting birth and fertility rates namely the drastically changing demographic makeup of the country.

As South Korea's population ages, there is no younger generation to balance the population demographics.

This trend is what led to the projection that over half of Korea's population will be over the age of 65 by 2065.

This has serious implications related to Korea's economic and military capacity.

Other countries have echoed South Korea's "birth strike" – making it a transnational feminist movement.

Women in China have started their own "four nos" movement, causing the population to start shrinking, and Japan is also experiencing a drastically lowered birth rate because of women's reluctance to marry and have children.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/lifestyle-buzz/the-4b-movement-in-korea-is-causing-the-birthrate-to-drop-will-other-countries-follow/ar-BB1iEHs2?ocid=mailsignout&pc=U591&cvid=3ed7f90608dd48d5bcf48969fe20c0c9&ei=12

Korea, like Japan and Taiwan will be a nation of old people in the not too distant future. Singpaore has immigration to maintain a working age population, but other Asian nations are reluctant to change demographics.

A British government health agency declared that drug-induced milk from "trans-women" – which would be biological males – is just as healthy for babies as breast milk from a female mother, according to a leaked letter.

AHarvard professor published a study that found no evidence of racial bias in police shootings – then "all hell broke loose," and he needed police protection.

In 2016, Harvard Economics Professor Roland Fryer published a study to explore racial differences in the use of force by police.

The study examined racial differences in non-lethal uses of force, such as "putting hands on civilians (which includes slapping or grabbing) or pushing individuals into a wall or onto the ground." The study found that Hispanics are more than 50% more likely to have an interaction with police that involves any use of force than whites.

The study found that blacks are 21% more likely than whites to be involved in an interaction with police in which at least a weapon is drawn.

However, when it came to police-involved shootings, minorities were found to be less likely to be shot at by an officer.

The research revealed that blacks are 23.5% less likely to be shot at by police than whites. Meanwhile, Hispanics were 8.5% less likely to be shot at by police compared to whites.

The paper stated, "Partitioning the data in myriad ways, we find no evidence of racial discrimination in officer-involved shootings. Investigating the intensive margin – the timing of shootings or how many bullets were discharged in the endeavor – there are no detectable racial differences."

During a recent interview, Fryer revealed that there was tremendous outrage over the findings of the study – to the point he needed police protection for his family.

Fryer – who became the youngest tenured black professor at Harvard at age 30 – noted that the researchers in the study collected millions of observations on non-fatal use of force and thousands of observations on lethal use of force.

Despite the vast research, some people were furious over the findings.

"I realized, people lose their minds when they don't like the result," Fryer said during a sit-down conversation with journalist Bari Weiss.

He hired eight fresh researchers to ensure the results were correct, and the results remained the same.

"All hell broke loose" immediately after the 104-page economics paper with a 150-page appendix was published, according to Fryer.

Within four minutes of publishing the paper, Fryer received an email that read: "You're full of s**t."

He explained, "I had colleagues take me to the side and say, 'Don't publish this. You'll ruin your career.'"

The hostilities toward Fryer were so intense that he required police protection for about a month, including his then-7-day-old daughter.

"I was going to the grocery store to get diapers with the armed guard. It was crazy. It was really, truly crazy," Fryer said during a recent episode of "Honestly with Bari Weiss."

Fryer is the author of more than 50 papers.

The Free Press said of the professor, "At 34, he won a MacArthur Genius Fellowship, followed by a John Bates Clark Medal, which is given to an economist in America under 40 who is judged to have made the most significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge."
https://www.theblaze.com/news/harvard-professor-study-police-shootings-racial-bias?utm_source=theblaze-breaking&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20240218Trending-Debanked&utm_term=ACTIVE%20LIST%20-%207%20Day%20Engagement&tpcc=email-breaking

In our society, there are consequences for exposing the truth.

As production of cattle has plummeted to its lowest levels in decades, a rancher is warning that Americans are "going to pay the price" for the beef supply hitting a crisis point.

"This is a bad situation for America's cattle farmers and America because we're producing 1 billion pounds less beef than we were in this country, just a year ago," John Boyd, Jr. – president of the National Black Farmers Association – said during a Thursday interview on "Fox & Friends First."

Boyd has been farming and producing beef for 41 years, and he stressed, "I'm telling you, this is a time when we should be investing in America's cattle, and we're not doing it."

"We're not investing in America's beef and cattle farmers, and Biden policies are hurting America's cattlemen, such as myself," he continued. "They should be invested in America's cattle farmers and making sure that we have the tools needed to stay on the farm."

American Farm Bureau Federation Economist Bernt Nelson told the Southern Farm Network, "The combination of higher input prices and drought drove farmers and ranchers to market more cattle, and not just more cattle but more female cattle that are responsible for replacing the beef herd. Now, we're looking at a beef herd of about 28.2 million head. Amongst that we have a calf crop that is 33.6 million. Now this is down two percent, but it's the smallest calf crop since 1948. That's in 76 years."

Nelson said the current pipeline for beef supplies is "strong," but cautioned "as that supply begins to dry up, that's when we are going to see beef supplies start to get tighter and tighter, and this could lead to the record prices that I think are going to occur in 2024 and 2025."

Beef sold for an average of $5 per pound last year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
https://www.theblaze.com/news/cattle-production-lowest-level-prices-spike?utm_source=theblaze-dailyAM&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily-Newsletter__AM%202024-02-11&utm_term=ACTIVE%20LIST%20-%20TheBlaze%20Daily%20AM&tpcc=email

Deliberately increasing the price of diesel has had an inflationary impact on the price of food throughout the Western world where our obsession to lower emissions has forced people to food banks.

You have countries like the Netherlands and Canada artificially inflating the price of fertilizer. First they came for your F-150, now they are want to control what is on your plate.

The D.C. Circuit's opinion on presidential immunity from criminal prosecution based on official acts was wrong. It should, and likely will, be reversed.

First, the D.C. Circuit opinion is almost impossible to square with the Supreme Court's decision on presidential immunity from civil lawsuits based on official acts, Nixon v. Fitzgerald. That case granted former presidents absolute immunity from civil lawsuits for acts within the "outer perimeter" of their duties of office.

The D.C. Circuit didn't hold that the former President's alleged criminal acts were beyond that "outer perimeter." They held that there is no such immunity from criminal prosecution, period.

That creates an enormous amount of tension between civil and criminal immunity. For example, under the rule in Fitzgerald, former President Obama cannot be sued by the family of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, the 16-year-old American citizen Obama killed with a drone strike in 2011, for wrongful death. But under the logic of the D.C. Circuit, he could be criminally prosecuted for that same act, even absent impeachment and conviction by the Senate. The fact that Obama was acting as the President and commander-in-chief wouldn't matter: His official acts as commander-in-chief would be "constrained by and subject to 'criminal statutes of general application," and he could be prosecuted.

It also rejects most of the logic of the Fitzgerald opinion, which spends ample time discussing the unique nature of the presidency and how important it is in our constitutional structure. It also explains how liability can jeopardize the functioning of a President who both is commander-in-chief of the armed forces and has the responsibility to "take care" that the laws are faithfully executed. The D.C. Circuit tries to analogize immunity for the President to immunity for judges, jurors, Presidential advisors, and prosecutors. But Fitzgerald holds that the Presidency deserves unique solicitude when it comes to civil immunity. It's hard to imagine that the Supreme Court wouldn't extend that solicitude to criminal immunity.

The D.C. Circuit tries to distinguish criminal from civil liability on two further fronts. First, they suggest that the criminal justice system can't so easily be used to harass a former president due to the need for the Department of Justice to seek an indictment and for a grand jury to issue one. But given how politicized DOJ has become, and how trivial it is to get a D.C. grand jury to indict a Republican, this is hardly persuasive.

Second, they suggest that because this is the first time that a former president has been criminally indicted in our nation's history, there is little likelihood of future partisan prosecutions of former presidents. There are two obvious answers to this point: First, that the lack of such a history suggests there is a settled understanding that presidents have immunity from prosecution for their official acts. Second, the unprecedented bout of lawfare against former President Trump—four criminal indictments in four different jurisdictions in a little over four months—augurs a future that will be full of partisan presidential indictments.

I suspect that the Supreme Court is going to agree with President Trump's lawyers and ultimately hold that a former president has absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts, save those for which he is impeached and convicted by the Senate. The lawfare against President Trump should stop, and it very likely will be stopped.

Will Chamberlain is Senior Counsel at The Internet Accountability Project and The Article III Project.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/why-the-supreme-court-will-likely-rule-that-trump-has-immunity-opinion/ar-BB1hZTwa?ocid=mailsignout&pc=U591&cvid=42cba7df30c94948a52fe840a4afae3c&ei=12

I hope so. Biden cannot be allowed to win a second election without campaigning.

Green Bay Packers offensive lineman David Bakhtiari recently put Democratic Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi on blast about a curious trade that was brought to the public's attention. The star Packers player has a history of calling out politicians who make profits in the stock market while in office.

Bakhtiari used his X platform to highlight a trade made by the late Senator Dianne Feinstein, whose net worth grew to over $200 million during her 30-year career in public office. Feinstein's family has been in the news for years because of money they've made in unusual trades. Bakhtiari asked how US citizens can be "cool" with actions from politicians like Feinstein, who can use information from committee briefings to make smart trades in their respective portfolios.

Bakhtiari pointed out another trade on his X account this week. Unusual Whales posted a Tweet on a trade Pelosi made. The account alleges Pelosi bought millions in stock of Nvidia and has millions in stock of Microsoft and Google.
https://twitter.com/unusual_whales/status/1750219082849485157?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1750219082849485157%7Ctwgr%5E4c7dabd410a6784b9b9178664ece70a5b5a114fe%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.yardbarker.com%2Fnfl%2Farticles%2Fdemocrat_nancy_pelosi_called_out_by_packers_star_for_curious_stock_trades_connected_to_government_projects%2Fs1_17068_39878770

Bakhtiari doesn't seem pleased with how Pelosi is putting herself in a position to make money by investing in private corporations that the government is backing.

"Dope..Nothing to see here," Bakhtiar wrote on X.
https://twitter.com/DavidBakhtiari/status/1750305297820995652?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1750305297820995652%7Ctwgr%5E4c7dabd410a6784b9b9178664ece70a5b5a114fe%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.yardbarker.com%2Fnfl%2Farticles%2Fdemocrat_nancy_pelosi_called_out_by_packers_star_for_curious_stock_trades_connected_to_government_projects%2Fs1_17068_39878770

The trades Pelosi and other politicians have made on Nvidia, Microsoft, and Google are legal. However, many people responding to Bakhtiari's post feel those trades cross ethical boundaries.

It doesn't matter what anyone thinks of Farrakhan or Trump, Frarrakhan makes some interesting comments about the former president.

Even if we eliminated all taxes on home builders in Canada, they cannot possibly build enough housing for 1.5 million newcomers per year. And green regulations at all three levels of government add $55, 000 to the cost of each detached single dwelling.

When Stephen Harper was pm our total intake immigrants, students, and refugees was about one third what it was in 2023. There was no housing shortage crisis on his watch. Cut annual immigration intake by two thirds and there is no housing crisis in Canada. Cut ineffective green construction rules and the price of new units drops

These are simple common sense solutions. And new taxes will not some how spur mass building and increase supply.

Apparently I received an email that the host would be having an upgrade today. I deleted it without reading. Sorry about that.

One of the biggest myths radical leftists who use climate change to advance socialism make is that capitalism makes local environments uninhabitable and people less healthy. The data shows precisely the opposite.

As one argument would have it, capitalism is responsible for the destruction of the environment because capitalism is based on growth. And yes, capitalism has led to tremendous economic growth. But without this growth, an ever-expanding world population would not have been able to provide even the most basic necessities. After all, in 1800, there were just one billion people on the planet; today there are more than seven billion.

Economic Growth Helps To Combat Hunger And Poverty

It is all the more astonishing that, despite this rapid population growth, the world has not been overcome by rampant poverty. Looking back to 1800, most people in the world were extremely poor—average incomes were the same as they are in the poorest countries in Africa today and more than 90% of the global population was living in extreme poverty. The development of capitalism and economic growth reduced the proportion of extremely poor people in the world to less than 10%—despite the sevenfold increase in the global population during this same period. So growth is not a bad thing in and of itself. In fact, growth has led to a reduction in hunger and poverty.

Life expectancy at birth has increased more than twice as much in the last century as in the previous 200,000 years. The probability of a child born today reaching retirement age is higher than the probability of previous generations ever celebrating their fifth birthdays. In 1900, the average life expectancy worldwide was 31 years; today it stands at 71 years. Of the roughly 8,000 generations of Homo sapiens since our species emerged approximately 200,000 years ago, only the last four have experienced massive declines in mortality rates.

In the last 140 years there have been 106 major famines, each of which has cost more than 100,000 lives. The death toll has been particularly high in socialist countries such as the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, Ethiopia and North Korea, killing tens of millions of people through the forced transfer of private means of production to public economies and the weaponization of hunger. On its own, the biggest socialist experiment in history, Mao's Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s killed more than 45 million Chinese.

The number of deaths due to major famines fell to 1.4 million per year in the 1990s—not least as a result of the collapse of socialist systems worldwide and China increasingly embracing capitalism. In the first two decades of the 21st century approximately 600,000 people perished of hunger. That is equivalent to roughly 2% of the death toll from the early 20th century—despite the fact that the global population is four times larger today than it was back then.

The Price Of Growth—Destruction Of The Environment?

But isn't there a price for this growth: environment devastation? Of course, nobody would deny that industrialization causes environmental problems. But the assertion that growth automatically leads to ever accelerating environmental degradation is simply false. Yale University's Environmental Performance Index (EPI) uses 16 indicators to rank countries on environmental health, air quality, water, biodiversity, natural resources and pollution. These indicators have been selected to reflect both the current baseline and the dynamics of national ecosystems. One of the Index's most striking findings is that there is a strong correlation between a state's wealth and its environmental performance. Most developed capitalist countries achieve high environmental standards. Those countries with the worst EPI scores, such as Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Chad and Niger, are all poor. They have both low investment capacity for infrastructure, including water and sanitation, and tend to have weak environmental regulatory authorities.

Contrary to prevailing perceptions, industrial development and technological advances have contributed significantly to relieving the burden on the environment. Both Indur Goklany in his book The Improving State of the World and Steven Pinker in chapter ten ("The Environment") of his book Enlightenment Now demonstrate that we are not only living longer, healthier lives in unprecedented prosperity, but we are also doing so on a comparatively clean planet.


Researchers have confirmed that economic freedom—in other words, more capitalism—leads to higher, not lower, environmental quality.

Every year, the Heritage Foundation compiles its Index of Economic Freedom, which analyzes individual levels of economic freedom, and thus capitalism, in countries around the world. The Heritage Foundation's researchers also measure the correlation between each country's environmental performance and its economic freedom. The results couldn't be clearer: the world's most economically free countries achieve the highest environmental performance rankings with an average score of 76.1, followed by the countries that are "mostly free," which score an average of 69.5. In stark contrast, the economically "repressed" and "mostly unfree" countries all score less than 50 for environmental performance.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rainerzitelmann/2020/07/13/system-change-not-climate-change-capitalism-and-environmental-destruction/?sh=920531e6d72a

This video is by Leslyn Lewis. I admit, I haven't seen it yet. I'll comment on it after I watch it.
https://leslynlewis.substack.com/p/the-truth-about-smart-cities?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email#media-8fbb382b-24fc-4987-9651-dfdd786c6c07

I heard BF lifted the lockdown on guest viewing, so my curiousity got the better of me, and I took a brief look.

Realgrimm, I like your idea about uniting under one forum roof. But, it will never happen at BF unless ownership of that forum changes hands. Besides being unstable and unpredicatble, the owner of BF has abused his panel more than any forum owner I have ever seen. If you were to become the new owner, it might be possible to unite what is left of the community under the BF banner. But, I think that would happen over the owner of BF's dead body.

It is no wonder Dems think rules only apply to the other party. Voting to oust George Santos is just another example of that.

The Republican party needs to grow a backbone.


https://www.theblaze.com/columns/opinion/have-the-republicans-lost-their-marbles?utm_source=theblaze-breaking&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20231211Trending-ActiveUserTrending&utm_term=ACTIVE%20LIST%20-%207%20Day%20Engagement
They took selective action against a conservative-voting GOP congressman who has rallied consistently to his party's tiny majority. Shame on such moral posturing!
Perhaps the dumbest thing I've seen Republican congressmen do in my entire long life was their vote to expel former U.S. Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) from their fellowship. One doesn't have to admire Santos' character or excuse his con games to recognize he was no less worthy of his former post than many Democrats who remain in Congress.

Of course, nothing happened to our alarm-tripping black radical except for a slap on the wrist and an inconvenient censure. When Republicans finally voted to censure him, they could only pull along three Democrats. This came after the Democrats spent weeks trying to block even a minimal recognition of Bowman's outrageous behavior.

House Democrats also allowed their colleague Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) to remain chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, even after revelations that Swalwell was having an affair with a Chinese spy. The Democrats have also more recently blocked any attempt to discipline Swalwell for his misbehavior.

Were Santos' actions so singularly shameful that they surpassed the sleazy behavior of many of his colleagues, such as Senator Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), who is only one of our morally compromised Democratic solons? Charlie Kirk has devoted a recent podcast to the timely theme of "why expelling the clown George Santos is dumber than usual for Republicans."

Self-destructive righteousness
Such activities may be driven partly by a need to overcompensate for the way the media depict Republican politicians, namely as mean-spirited, ultra-partisan right-wingers. This may drive Republicans into engaging periodically in unseemly virtue-signaling and constant jabbering about finding "common ground" with the left. New York Post columnist Miranda Devine has mocked the 105 Republican congressmen who "were suckered by moral vanity" into cutting their own throats.

Although I wouldn't discount Trump's vanity or verbal intemperance, it is to his credit that, unlike most congressional Republicans, this populist hero doesn't indulge in self-destructive righteousness.

I won't hold my breath until the Democrats start dumping their own clowns in a spasm of moral righteousness or in order to disarm media critics. The Democrats are a serious, ruthless force who will break any rule or protect any miscreant to hold onto and expand their power. I may loathe their politics, but I profoundly admire their relentless pursuit of what they want.

Democrats could easily dump Bowman, Menendez, and other lowlifes in their party without risking seats. Such tarnished pols could be easily replaced by their ideological and even gender or ethnic look-alikes. But why make such concessions from their position of power? Let the other side fall on its sword. That's not how the Democrats act.

Is Santos really more reprehensible than that black racist demagogue Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), who, about a week before he left for a pro-Hamas demonstration, managed to trip the fire alarm in a U.S. Capitol office building? From the video made public of the incident, Bowman committed his criminal act quite deliberately and did it apparently to keep the House from agreeing on a temporary budget bill that would avert a shutdown. Bowman was eager to bring about a shutdown to punish "racist" Republicans. He therefore acted in a blatantly criminal fashion, endangering the lives of his colleagues.

What was done to Santos was for Republicans the height of folly. The Long Island district that he represented, mostly in Nassau County, will almost certainly go back to the Democrats. Meanwhile the thin majority that the GOP now holds in the House will become even more sliver-like. Since former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has already announced that he plans to depart at the end of the year, this will shrink the Republican voting margin to just three. If Republicans are now having problems trying to assert their will in a predominantly Democratic Congress, try doing it with an even narrower majority.

Small government is smart government.

Javier Milei, Argentina's new libertarian president, has wasted no time amputating various bureaucratic tentacles.

Within hours of being sworn into office on Sunday, Milei made good on his vow to take a "chainsaw" both to government spending and to what he called his country's "political caste," signing an executive order to cut the number of government ministries from 18 to nine.