Carney gave an important speech yesterday, which you can read here. That lead to a lot of people praising him for his honesty in noting that the rules-based order was accepted by developed nations because they benefited from it, even though everyone knew it was bullshit: if you weren’t in the club, the rules didn’t apply to you. And even if you were in the club, the rules didn’t always apply to you, but most of them did and overall the benefits outweighed the costs, at least as far as our ruling class was concerned.
Carney points out that this deal has been violated in a rupture. The old world order is dead. People who say that it died in Gaza are WRONG. Mass murder of brown people in a non-developed country is acceptable to the rules based order. (It would not be acceptable in South Korea or Japan.)
But there’s something very important in Carney’s speech: he brags about having dropped taxes and that’s a clue.
Carney is clear eyed and honest enough to recognize the hypocrisy of the old system. He was a participant, but he was one of the rare powerful participants who was able to function and realize some of the injustices of the old system. He knew it was bullshit. Most people need to entirely believe in a system, they can’t handle the moral dissonance. To Carney the trade off was worth if it you were part of the Global North, and he was willing to live with that and participate in it.
Now long before Carney was Prime Minister I had criticized him. As a central banker he blew two housing bubbles, one in Canada and one in Britain, which massively hurt ordinary people and he bailed out bankers and rich people during the financial collapse. In fact, his performance in Canada was abysmal, in that it set up a new housing bubble basically immediately.
But housing bubbles are good for rich people. They get the benefits, not the costs.
And that’s the key to understanding Carney. He’s not a left winger. He’s not a post war liberal. He’s a neoliberal technocrat, and the job of neoliberal technocrats is to keep making the rich richer. It really is almost that simple and if you use that as your guide to their actions you’ll be right most of the time.
Let’s go back to those taxes. One of Carney’s goals is to reindustrialize Canada. It’s a real goal, he’s taking action on it, spending money on it and cutting deals pursuing it. But low corporate taxes and low marginal top individual tax rates undercuts that goal. The higher corporate taxes are the more it makes sense to reinvest earnings in production. If top individual rates are low, the rich want money cashed out thru stock buybacks (which should be illegal if you want industrial growth, because they too encourage wasting money that could be reinvested in production) or dividends.
You should also have high capital gains taxes on short term gains. Ninety percent if cashed out under five years, dropping 10% a year after that is a good benchmark, with exceptions for primary residences and a few other niche cases. Again, you want people investing for the long term, and this also cuts out a lot of the bullshit that happens due to stock options.
So if Carney’s only goal was re-industrializtion, and he was method-agnostic, not an ideologue, he would raise certain taxes rather than lowering them.
But he didn’t do that, because Carney, like most politicians and senior technocrats in our system, is a concierge for the rich. His job is to make them better off. They don’t want to be annexed by the US or to have to live in fear of a fickle US changing deals at a whim. But they still want to be super rich. In the old world order that meant having access to the US, because US returns were outsized compared to non-US returns. Every elite in every other country wanted access to US financial markets. But that access is not worth the price any more.
What makes Carney different from most current elite concierges is that he is actually competent, not a worthless courtier, and that he’s able to see the hypocrisies of the system. He’s self-aware.
I supported Carney in the last election and I still support him because while he’s far from what I want, he’s at least doing some of the right things. Enough of the right things to be worth supporting. That doesn’t mean I like him, or even think he’s a good person. He isn’t. But he’s competent and has enough guts to move away from the US. While he does so he’s making a lot of compromises like joining the Board of Peace. That’s an evil act and I’m sure he knows it is, being clear eyed, but it’s a minor evil act because Canada doesn’t have a potential veto on how Palestinians are treated.
I wish he was better and my support is very conditional. Perhaps I’m not as pure as I should be. Feel free to flay me in the comments. But a man who helps break up the American Empire, and that’s what Carney is doing by being the first to make a real break with the US and with his speech calling for the middle powers to abandon America, is doing enough to make it over to the “on the balance, more good than evil” book in my mind. Now if he had a veto on Gaza the way an American President does, it’d be different.
He doesn’t and he’s helping destroy the old world order while being by far and away the best current option for Canada.
We need better if we’re ever going to move back to a truly good economy in western countries or a more good than evil world order. Carney’s still a concierge for the rich. But in helping protect Canada’s rich, he’s helping destroy the American Empire and that will be good for billions of people, including Palestinians, and he’s protecting Canada from America and some of what he’s doing will be good for ordinary people.
Even if Carney’s motives for helping destroy the old order are crass, the fact that he’s doing so is enough for me.
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Feral Finster
https://indi.ca/wolves-crying-wolf-canada-denmark-etc/
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So here we have it. I agree with Dara, principles and values are not absolute givens. You can have them, if you prefer to have them, only when you can afford to have them. It’s as though it’s a law of physics. Carney’s speech means Canada is weak. It’s an admission that Canada can ill-afford to be principled. By that measure, Carney’s own measure mind you, Canada has never afforded to be principled and by that measure Canada will never be principled. America can afford to be principled but has emphatically chosen not to be as all current great powers have chosen not to be. Principles Schminciples.
http://youtube.com/post/UgkxLkzc3UlwJVwQ1enl6sMOMsJ_R372lTbD?si=Bvc1lCAwT7c652or
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-pro-palestinian-protesters-home-foreign-minister-melanie-joly/
Mark Pontin
Ian Welsh: ‘That doesn’t mean I like him, or even think he’s a good person. He isn’t.’
‘Good people’ don’t usually get things done, Ian.
LBJ wasn’t a ‘good person.’ But he’d made his plans since he was a poor teacher of impoverished children in Depression-era Texas, then hid those plans completely from all his fellow Southern pols and gone along for decades with all the corruption, till he was in the White House. But once he was in and was told by his frightened advisors that he’d lose the support of every other Southern pol and many others in his party if he pushed through the Civil Rights Act, he went in the other room to think for some minutes and then came out and said, ‘what’s the Presidency for, gentlemen?’ and started pushing the Act through.
Your boy Jeremy Corbyn *is* a ‘good person’, conversely. In the decades since he became an MP in1983 — 1983, FFS! — he’s been at just about every pro-Palestine, pro-IRA, anti-apartheid, anti-Iraq war, pro-gay, and every other identitarian underdog demonstration he could be at. Here’s his record —
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Corbyn
And he’s achieved eff-all and been totally worthless.
Ian Welsh
While he had a lot of flaws FDR was, on the balance, a good man who has vast compassion for ordinary people (he was also a racist, though he liked the Chinese and had great compassion for their suffering, which is what caused his actions against the Japanese), and he got more good done than any other US President.
Usually is doing a lot of work.
Also you’re confused about what a good person is, LBJ may have been a piece of shit in his personal life, but he was a good person in many ways, as your anecdote proves. He also launched the war on poverty and was so upset by the Vietnam war that he decided not to run again.
Perfect? No. But he was good in many of the ways that matter for leaders.
This confusion between whether someone is a good friend and/or parent and whether they are a good leader matters.
If Carney was a truly good leader he’d be raising taxes to support re-industrialization, as I noted. He can’t stop the Gaza genocide even if he went all in, so be it. But he can raise taxes to speed up re-industrialization, and doing so would protect Canada and help the transition he wants. It would also help ordinary people, something FDR and LBJ wanted to do, but which Carney is largely indifferent to. If it happens, he’s OK with it, but his policies as both a central banker and as Prime Minister indicate it’s not a primary goal.
I guess I need to do another post on what makes someone a good leader and the difference between ethics and morals.
Clonal Antibody
You might also be interested in this
https://rtdefree.online/international/267700-entfuehrung-maduros-chinas-stille-harte-antwort-auf-washington/
This is the only place I found it – use translate to read – if you look for an English version, you won’t find it.
I don’t see any coverage of this in Western media
I was pointed to it by
https://sonar21.com/chinas-silent-tough-response-to-washingtons-kidnapping-of-the-maduros/
Quote:
The first phase of China’s response began at 9:15 a.m. on January 4, when the People’s Bank of China discreetly announced the temporary suspension of all US dollar transactions with companies with ties to the US defense sector. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and General Dynamics awoke to news that all their transactions with China had been frozen without notice.
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At 11:43 a.m. that same day, the State Grid Corporation of China, which controls the world’s largest power grid, announced the technical review of all its contracts with US suppliers of electrical equipment, implying that China is decoupling itself from American technology.
The US government had not yet fully digested the blow when China activated a new package of measures: mobilizing the Global South. At 4:22 p.m. that same day, January 4, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi offered Brazil, India, South Africa, Iran, Turkey, Indonesia, and 23 other countries immediate preferential terms of trade for any country that publicly pledged not to recognize a Venezuelan government that would come to power through the criminal hands of the United States.
In less than 24 hours, 19 countries had accepted the offer. Brazil was the first, followed by India, South Africa and Mexico. And that is the practical realization of the multipolar world in action. China has achieved an immediate anti-US coalition using the weapon of economic incentives.
ventzu
Ian
Carney quickly joining the BoP (even whilst W Europe prevaricates) is going against what he preached – middling powers standing up together against bullying. If middling powers – and BRICS – declined the BoP, it would have no legitimacy and would fall flat on its face, as it should do. Now with Canada the first to break ranks, and Russia talking about joining (albeit ‘cleverly’ proposing to use frozen funds), it starts to have legitimacy and destroys the UN. If anything it gives more power to the US empire – let alone Trump’s personal fiefdom.
KT Chong
My observations:
Only personal suffering can make a person truly good. This is especially true for those born into wealth and privilege. Goodness is forged by facing real vulnerability —poverty, hunger, prolonged illness, disability — experiences that force a person to understand helplessness and powerlessness.
FDR is a perfect example. He contracted polio, which left him permanently paralyzed from the waist down, shaping his empathy and sense of responsibility towards less fortunate people.
By contrast, a life of comfort breeds selfishness, entitlement, and shallowness. Perfect example: Donald Trump—born with a golden spoon up his arse, never knowing hunger or hardship a single day in his life. His only “suffering” is being told no, or that people do not love or worship him enough.
capelin
“Even if Carney’s motives for helping destroy the old order are crass, the fact that he’s doing so is enough for me.”
That’s how MAGA felt.
Seriously, Ian, this all reads like you you’ve emotionally bought into the New Narrative.
Not saying that praxis and real-polotix aren’t valid considerations, or that shit samwhich “A” might be a better choice at times than shit samwhich “B”.
I remember being moved and hopeful after hearing some Obama oratory. Or when Elon bought twitter. Ah, innocence.
Carney is Canada’s new Obama. Everything will be just fine, go back to sleep, trust daddy. Political opposition to elite bullshit has tanked in Canada, same as it did in the U.S. with O. Those were sizable heads of discontent-steam that got /safely vented.
The alien-lizard technocrat elites will not save us.
NR
It seems that a lot of people are going to be very surprised when they find out that there is no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism.
Jefferson Hamilton
“if we’re ever going to move back to a truly good economy in western countries ”
Still thinking in these terms? The world is on the cusp of destruction thanks to “good economies.”
spud
Ian Welsh:
its all you can hope for in the western world, still feverishly caught up in ayn rand/hayek/milton friedmans hallucinogenic science fiction taken as facts.
carney is almost better than nothing.
you can see in Xi’s eyes, how he looked at a fool like carney, and thought you free traded away you wealth and industrial advantage so that financial parasites could goose and extend stock market bubbles. we will buy your dirt, even tariff you a bit lower because right now we need some of your dirt, but do not expect the contempt for you to go away.
but as time goes by maybe carney due to pressure to keep the economy from fully imploding, might go full FDR/Truman. we can only hope.
but even nixon had had enough of Friedmans follies, so there is hope.
you can never expect a clinton or blair to reform. but it appears for now, carney is getting a bit cautious about clintonism.
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Spud, I served with FDR, I knew FDR, FDR was a friend of mine. Spud, Mark Carnage is no FDR nor could he ever be.
My guess is, if Canada had the gumption to achieve true and total independence from the Crown, the population would be at least quadruple what it is today and perhaps Canada would have developed automobile manufacturing of its own like Japan and South Korea did. CM, Canuck Motors, could have rivaled GM. But no, all those tariffs on American cars and to this day Canada never developed its own automobile manufacturing companies — not even one.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/farhad-mansouri-6394a919a_canada-manufacturing-automotive-activity-7386556265864519680-bZRO?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F
Look at all of the excuses in the commentary to that link. The English way. South Korea has a population less than 60 million and yet two highly successful brands of auto — Kia and Hyundai. Like Japan, it accomplished this via heavy government subsidization and that involved taxing the rich.
Purple Library Guy
I think some of the comments here are reacting to things Mr. Welsh did not actually say. There is a tendency, when you’re on a particular side, to treat everything not on that side as sort of equivalently bad, or at least uniformly bad. And then, if someone points out the specific characteristics of someone not on our side, not all of which are bad, there’s a tendency to treat it as if they said that person was GOOD . . . it seems like a breaking of ranks, not holding the maximum line.
But on the left, we have few enough weapons that we can’t really afford the indulgence of not acknowledging the truth. Accurate knowledge is one of those few weapons we have, that both the centre and right generally sacrifice so they can use other weapons that they have but we don’t, like big expensive propaganda apparatuses. And I think this assessment of Carney is very accurate.
Whether that assessment makes him overall worth backing is another question. I mean, I’ll back him against Trump or Pierre Poilievre. But the person I’m most likely to back in the next couple of months is Avi Lewis. I’ll be pleased if he wins the NDP leadership.
Mark Level
Carney is a Competent Concierge of Empire, Genocide and Austerity– if this were the 1940s he’d be explaining why Marshall Petain is a great leader. He is a collaborator, a Capo, whatever term for globalist Vampire you wish to name. His buying Canada onto the “Board of Peace”, Orwellian bullshit tells you all you need to know.
Here’s the rub though– Nima had both Michael Hudson and Richard Wollf on. Hudson was clear (remember, he’s been around since the Nixon admin in the 70s, despite being in his 80s still sharp) that the plan is: Take Greenland AND Iceland to create a “Northern Corridor” to the Arctic and a sort of “Maginot Line” against Europe. Canada will be forcefully integrated as well, needless to see. In fact at the WEF, Trump repeatedly conflated Iceland and Greenland, his senility is about online with where Joe was at this point in his term.
Some other important data from the recent 48 hours. According to Colonel Wilkerson, the “Board of Piece” takes a $1 billion fee to join, which goes directly into Trump’s pocket, NOT into the Pentagon, which adds 50% next year in funding, up from $1 Trillion to $1.5 Trillion”. That’s peace-making, amright? Due Dissidence is covering li’l Jared at the WEF, explaining all the Data Centers and High End Tourist destinations over the graves of the Palestinians, who will be moved out. Sadly, Bibi couldn’t join the first BOP Meeting as he’ll be on it, because Switzerland said they would follow the international arrest warrant & take him into custody.
Let’s go back to the big picture– Trump and the loony Nazi knock-offs around him think they will grab everything from Canada to Iceland, won’t bother to consume Britain, a shit-hole now, maybe pieces of France or the places that are still semi-functional.
We now live in Europe c. 1939 after Austria and the Sudentenland were swallowed. Now, I will concede that Trump is scared to put “Boots on the Ground” for long, but he is increasingly high on his own Self-Praise supply. It will be time for local populations to decide, will they fight or will they be swallowed by the most venal, violent and insane hyper-Capitalist Cancer Cell that has ever existed in human history, as far as we know. The US certainly could do Shock ‘N Awe mass bombing on any resistance, I don’t think these Clowns could actually occupy or hold much if the populace is armed, so it will be Catch as Catch Can.
Many good comments here, I thank Clonal Antibody for the (concealed) data about China immediately reacting, and the likes of Brazil and others joining them in an actual Coalition of the Willing. To conclude with Carney, I think spud’s “carney is almost better than nothing” says it all. He peeped before he sells his nation for 30 pieces of silver. Not too courageous, and will be a footnote if these clowns don’t burn the whole planet down in Nuclear Fire. Excellent point by NR also.
The next 5 years appear increasingly a repeat of 1939-45, lotsa death and mass destruction. I guess maybe killing off huge amounts of human pestilence might actually slow Climate Change so there’s something positive.
Oh, and Putin has not yet said yes to joining the Board of Peace — a Western reporter at WEF was horrified he was asked, bugged Trump about it. Putin refused for the time being until/ unless the Palestinians (like Cuba and Venezuela) get a place at the table. Putin also stated the UN must be included, and full reconstruction for Gaza and the West Bank must be offered. Additionally the frozen Russian assets that Ursula keeps trying to steal could go entirely to Palestinian reconstruction, not the Ukro-Nazis, he stated. The Zionist Entity was enraged that Turkiye and Egypt were invited in too (if they pony up the $$), but with Trump having the final Veto of any policies, and Bibi pulling Trump’s puppet strings, no worries anything good will happen. The only discordant note from Putin I thought was meeting the traitor Mahmoud Abbas, but I guess they gotta play traditional politics sometimes.
(Most of the info in last paragraph from Due Dissidence broadcast today.) Britain won’t join because “Pyutin” is invited, so there’s a silver lining. It seems to me that China and Russia (& Iran) are playing their cards well. If the world splits into 2, Canada and the Euros will be under the Boot, those allied with Asia will do far better.
spud
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most likely correct. but then again, desperation makes strange bed fellows. so you never know.
i have a hunch that the clinton/blair/obama/mulruney/ford/truedough model is all but dead in the water.
there will be a few that will look out for their necks.
ventzu
Thanks Mark for that Due Dissidence reference. The RT article I read did not cover that detail, though it has now been updated. That is a decent position for Putin to take.
The Heretic
Carney has made a major tactical error. Although his assessment is correct, he should also remember that Canada is extremely vulnerable to economic predation or deprivation from the USA, which is already occuring. Military predation is still possible, but the likelihood is very small ( as it would likely sever thr USA from its allies in Europe or even latin America. (Japan, Korea and Taiwan, sitting beside the new giant, will always want the implicit or explicit protection of the USA.) Hence Carney should not speak in public about any thing that overtly annoys the new Don, , the manifest destiny pirates, the dogs of war who like to demonstrate their superiority, or the z-plague bringers.
I do believe that Carney can still maneuver and Canada can cultivate a much lower economic dependance on the USA, by actively engaging all the middle powers in a quiet but serious manner. I believe he can still politely but firmly deny cooperation or submission in economic terms to the US, but he should always act in a manner that keeps the USA, Canada, and all of latin America safe from foreign influence or invasion in either an explicit and open or covert manner.
This brings me to the BYD issue… that is perhaps a very overt issue… Ontario can be very quickly harmed by US actions, and conversely China could not quickly replace the USA (nor would it trust us enough to do so, and China knows that it cannot realistically challenge the USA on the continent of North America)…
Sun Tzu said that (in general) the small should not contend with the many, nor the weak against the strong.
Mark Level
Oh yeah; a few orts and scraps I didn’t mention:
1. Thanks to Finster for the first link, excellent stuff, spot on.
2. At the start of the WEF, it was the blockhead moron Mark Rutte (no relation) who immediately sold out all his fellow Euro-Slugs to “Daddy” Trump, NATO + Trump will = the 5th Reich. (Zionist Entity is the 4th, Ukraine sadly fell short for 5th spot, has the ideology right but not the Macht, Might-Muscle. Zelensky bragged Ukraine would be “Big Israel” in the region but is better at dancing in high heels.)
3. Rutte scored 5th in Alex Christoforou’s Clown World 2025 award winners, should’ve ranked higher in my estimation. A room temperature IQ would be a major boost for him. He is famous for an endlessly repeated joke about Sergei Lavrov, “He’s been Foreign Minister of Russia since Chezzus vas zer boy!” So yesterday I expressed admiration for a couple of small Euro-countries and expressed the hope they wouldn’t get eaten by the Empire, Belgium and the Dutch. Now I have to remove the Dutch because this turd represents them as NATO chief. I respected them coz of their social liberalism, early cannabis legalization so they were a tourist destination for decades, also sexually liberated etc. Paul Verhoeven did an amazing WW II movie as a riposte to the phony Schindler’s List, Black Book about a gorgeous Resistance Spy who is betrayed by her comrades, temporarily hooks up with a humane Nazi commander to spy, etc. as well. Well scratch them now.
I also listed the Belgians, who I will keep. I also greatly respect the Danes for their film directors, Lars von Trier and Thomas Vintenburg among them, strong stuff. But they’ve been thrown under the bus.
I’ll substitute the Spanish for the Niederlanders at this point. Anti-fascist after suffering through Franco, their language is just a bit shy in beauty to Brazilian Portuguese.
4. France ain’t on the list, despite some great film directors, perhaps the longest list, and great literature as well. I appreciate Trump shaming Macron, who appeared at Davos with dark glasses after the “Missus” (or Mister) blackened his eye again in the most recent beating. Macron’s Mash Note to Trumpy, “come have lunch in Paris with me and we’ll divide up the world” is pretty embarrassing. In the dark shades little Manuel looked the spitting image of Peter Sellers in the Pink Panther films, so perhaps he will have a future when he’s (soon) kicked out of power. Zelensky can give him some acting lessons, they are close.
mago
KTC nailed it. You have to know suffering to have empathy. Those born to privilege, i.e, those who popped out of a lucky womb, are blind to the suffering of others.
It’s one problem I have with the white world PMC spiritual seekers. They’re all talk and no realization, both spirituality and politically. Got their culturally conditioned blinders on. I’m surrounded by it, btw, which is why I comment on it.
Carney. As in a midway barker. He’s just smoother than to say step right up and bend right over for a look at the greatest show on earth featuring the two headed lady and her twins, but yeah, he’s a carnival man like all the rest of his ilk. It’s a deadly show they’re promoting, and they think we’re all rubes worthy of the milking.
different clue
The young Corporal Hitler knew suffering during WWI. He suffered a gas attack among other things. It didn’t make him a good person.
Is he the exception that proves the rule?
Carborundum
Globe and Mail is reporting that Trump has rescinded Carney’s invitation to the “Board of Peace” and that many of the European invitees are not attending with some rejecting membership: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/us-politics/article-trump-withdrawing-carneys-invitation-to-board-of-peace/
Sounds like Donnie has a mad.
Wallflower
Hi Ian,
You and a couple of others on this thread refer to Canada’s joining Trump’s awful “Board of Peace”, as if it was a done deal. What are your sources? All I’ve been able to find is references to Canada being hesitant or reluctant at this point. (As a Canuck, I strongly want us to leave this latest Trumpenscheme on the dumpster!)
Are any mainstream confirmations of us “joining”?
KT Chong
“The young Corporal Hitler knew suffering during WWI. He suffered a gas attack among other things. It didn’t make him a good person.”
Context matters. He’s more likely to have gained PTSD than empathy.
shagggz
Ian, would you also bottom-line Putin as “on the balance, more good than evil”?
Jan Wiklund
Most of what is said about good and evil persons is bullshit. One is judged by one’s actions, and some nice people can do horrific actions and vice versa.
Most Swedish historians consider Charles XI to be the best Swedish king in the early modern period (he ruled effectively about 1676-1697). He was a terrible prig and an equally terrible sourpuss, completely convinced he did the job of God and that everyone crossing his way was Evil. But the results of his (and his confederates’) job was mainly good. He kept us out of wars, deliberately. He made the high aristocracy powerless. He nationalized their land and started to sell it to peasants. He reduced corruption in the administration, mainly by setting an example. And he made the administration more efficient, without raising the cost for it.
Those who met him personally were not pleased. Those who only saw the results were. There were even Harun-ar-Rashid-like stories about him, going around in the country and correcting malfeasances in the bureaucracy. Most of them probably not true, but that was what people thought – of him, alone of all Swedish kings.
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Donald Trump knows suffering. He has suffered from bone spurs his entire life and now he suffers from cankles but he doesn’t speak of it because he’s a valiant , noble, modest warrior, nay a champ. Nor does he mention his fatty liver disease that is responsible for his orange glow coupled with his fatty head disease which is responsible for his big head and last but not least, he has suffered with alopecia his entire life from birth and has had to wear a not-so-tamed shrew atop his bald pate all his live long days beyond infancy. Donald Trump knows suffering, believe me you. By virtue of this, we know he is a good and virtuous person according to some zany, non-existent oriental zionist philosophy.
Dara, how did you like that?
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You and a couple of others on this thread refer to Canada’s joining Trump’s awful “Board of Peace”, as if it was a done deal. What are your sources?
Do you really need a source to tell you what anyone with more than brainstem should be able to conclude? Carney’s speech was an admission that he and Canada are weak and therefore he and Canada must put on the red light so to speak because they are not strong enough to have principles. This means that Carney will succumb to Trump and the American fascist coup if, and any time, said fascist coup shows any kind of favoritism toward Carney and Canada and maybe even if said fascist coup doesn’t. Carney is Kerensky and the current government of Canada is a provisional government considering what is about to unfold.
The following is for those who don’t get the red light reference.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T1c7GkzRQQ
Edmund Johnson
@Mark Level, Ian and many commenters here.
So the UK is a shit-hole?
The UK has a lower homicide rate, lower drug abuse rate and lower child mortality rate than Canada.
The UK has a more equal society than Spain and Italy.
The UK has a higher life expectancy than the US, obviously.
The UK has a higher educational ranking than Germany and Australia.
I never see Canada, the US, Australia, Spain or Italy described here as shit-holes, so I’m really curious – what is it that makes a country a shit-hole? Is it the number of times it is described as a shit-hole by people who comment on websites you read, or is it something more tangible? I have lived in the UK most of my life and I don’t recognise this country you describe.
I’m not getting at anyone personally, I am only commenting because of the prevalence here of similar comments. I would like to say that I find the routine, casual insulting of the UK by Ian and commenters here amusing, but I don’t. Perhaps I’m too sensitive, but there is a serious side – if people hear the same thing repeated many times it can first become received wisdom, and then a self-fulfilling prophecy. In other words, it is dangerous.
By all means criticise the UK; there are many problems here, there are isolated shit-holes in many cities, similar to many countries, and the economic outlook is not good. But please be more specific with the criticisms – the vague non-specific put-downs I read here are difficult to refute, however inaccurate they are.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/drug-use-by-country
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_inequality
https://www.unicef.org/innocenti/reports/child-poverty-midst-wealth
https://www.worlddata.info/education.php
dara fox
eye-opening post, I hadn’t considered the implications of carney’s position on taxes etc.
because of this i hate to sound like a carney stan, but there are a couple of criticisms of him in the thread which may be a bit unfair.
i think he probably joined the board of peace knowing that what he was going to say at davos was nuclear, so if he could give someone like trump, with no object permanence, something meaningless, ok. he probably figured that the board of peace is a passing whim that’ll go nowhere.
i’ll also push back on ‘good people’ getting nowhere. corbyn was mentioned above, so it’s important to remember that he got very, very close to power in 2017, and it then took a very concerted campaign by the entire elite, including sabotage within the labor party, to beat him in 2019. and a lot of that was down to anti-semitism smears, which i don’t think would work now thanks to gaza.
the first incarnation of lula was also a good guy, no? even if he’s been a bit worn down and compromised now.
to the extent that the good guys either don’t win or can’t maintain, it’s probably a collective action problem. you need enough significant countries to jump outside of ‘market logic’ (subservience to the financial system) at the same time and to support each other for them to be able to hold on.
DMC
Trump has withdrawn Carney’s imvitation to the BoP, so many of the disparaging comments have become moot points.
Feral Finster
dara fox:
“to the extent that the good guys either don’t win or can’t maintain, it’s probably a collective action problem. ”
It is because power attracts sociopaths, the way catnip attracts cats. At the same time, not only is power what Gets Shit Done, it also doesn’t go away. You can’t chuck The One Ring into Mount Doom and get away from power. Instead, if you don’t use that power, someone else will, and you may not like what they do with it.
It’s sort of like original sin in that regard.
Feral Finster
@Edmund Johnson:
Nice job cherry picking stats. I could cherry pick stats that show Mississippi is a paradise compared to the uk.
And if you have ever been there, yes, the uk is a shithole. The immigrants are mostly okay, though.
Feral Finster
@ KT Chong and different clue:
“The young Corporal Hitler knew suffering during WWI. He suffered a gas attack among other things. It didn’t make him a good person.”
Context matters. He’s more likely to have gained PTSD than empathy.”
Different people get different things from the same situation. Some humans came back from WWI with a whole new attitude towards war. Others, well, turn out to be Literal Hitler.
@ Mark Level:
Thank you for the kind words.
different clue
I will venture the suspicion that Trump’s Board of Peace is just another Trumptastic grift. He himself and his henchclones will control the money coming into it and the contracts going out. Any CountryGov which wants permanent membership has to pay a billion dollars into this private Trump Board of Peace Slush Fund. I wouldn’t be surprised if this Board of Peace doesn’t invest a lot of its take into TrumpCoins and other Trump-aligned Crypto.
different clue
About LBJ, I was a kid during the LBJ Administration, so my awareness was limited ( including my look-back awareness based in part on what I read since and also what I re-remember remembering).
Johnson is the one who turned Kennedy’s “counter-insurgency special operation” into a real war. Johnson took murky information about a so-called “incident” in the Gulf of Tonkin and deliberately faked it up into a “North Vietnamese attack” on American ships, so he could engineer his fake Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and bulldoze a trusting Senate into passing it. I believe only one single Senator, from the State of Alaska, voted No. ( Maybe Senator Fullbright voted No as well, but I don’t remember).
” Tonkin Gulf Resolution”
https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/tonkin-gulf-resolution
And from the Wikipedia entry on Gulf of Tonkin resolution, I get this . . .
” It was opposed in the Senate only by Senators Wayne Morse (D-OR) and Ernest Gruening (D-AK). Senator Gruening objected to “sending our American boys into combat in a war in which we have no business, which is not our war, into which we have been misguidedly drawn, which is steadily being escalated.” The Johnson administration subsequently relied upon the resolution to begin its rapid escalation of U.S. military involvement in South Vietnam and open warfare between North Vietnam and the United States. ” So my memory was 50% right. An Alaska Senator and an Oregon Senator voted against it. Senator Fullbright never did.
Johnson kept ramping up the Vietnam Action into a huge war as fast as he could. Was it from personal psychological flaws? Bad cultural hangover from WWII ( the Good War)? I don’t know.
He didn’t resign because he felt bad about the war. It was his own personal special project, after all. He resigned when Senator McCarthy defeated him so utterly and totally in the New Hampshire Primary that he realized his Presidential re-election desires were utterly hopeless. And he kept sabotaging Hubert Humphrey’s hopefully-imputed desire for a war wind-down outcome as hard as he could the whole time. Humphrey had what Hunter S. Thompson once called ” a case of Presidential blue-balls” and Johnson used that to keep extorting Humphrey’s humble and obedient support. Tom Lehrer the political satire song-writer once wrote a song about the agony of Hubert Humphrey. Tom Lehrer: Whatever Became Of Hubert? (concert live) (1965). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C11ZNuVSBMU It was silly for anyone to have expected a Vice President to be able to do something about a President in any case.
bruce wilder
It is always interesting, but still essentially mysterious when the Powers That Be hire someone competent.
The first and most important lesson remains the swift and expedient manner of his installation in power. That remains the first dot in the trail of dots leading his Davos speech. Someone wanted him and made it happen. Just as someone wanted Mario Draghi on an earlier occasion at the ECB and Italy. Or Ben Bernanke when the GFC was still only a glimmer in the eyes of its fathers. I would not presume the nationality of TPTB in any such cases.
The first moral of the First Lesson is that the formalities of institutionalized democratic politics are entirely performative. It remains the show, but hides the mechanics and real purpose and policy of Power. We might as well be Kreminologists at this point; our wishful thinking is no more knowledge of real politics than our well-justified outrage. We simply are not in The Room and have only a dim idea of who is in The Room, let alone what they are doing.
Mark Level
Hey, Hey, Edmund J–
Thank you for at least including some sourcing, but–
Are you familiar with something called “history”? Do you know the record of the British in the world over centuries? Do you know about current events and the last many UK governments, and the fact that Royalism survives there? (Okay, I understand that’s for the tourist industry, we all have to eat.)
So I’ll start on a personal note: on my dad’s side we were Irish Catholics, poor and uneducated. The Irish part of the family came over here in the late 19th century, my grandparents were very humble people who lived on stolen Native land in South Dakota (which I do not condone) and had a poor little farm, which they sustained thanks to FDR until the early 1950s. Both my grandparents had a middle school education, my grandfather died a janitor in his early 50s, basically of a broken heart.
How consistent was Irish hatred of the Irish “White Chimpanzees”? See Mike Davis’ masterful history, Late Victorian Holocausts: El Ninyo Famines and the Making of the 3rd World. Davis’ solid history doesn’t just cover why my paternal family were driven out by starvation and became miserable campesinos on stolen land in the “New World”, it covers the deliberate famines the British perpetrated in India over more than a century. Hey, if we’re going to condemn the millions Mao killed in his own country, Britain can’t come off scot-free for the millions it killed across its massive Empire without a second thought, its role in the African Slave Trade (yes, some grownups there ended slavery in the UK years before the US was forced to by the local slaveocracy, kudos.) Those killed in India were just “wogs” of course. Oh, Davis’ title comes from when some Aristo from Britain was up in Ireland and saw a starving Irish man dying by the side of the road and wrote about his pleasure seeing the “White Chimpanzee” die in misery. I’m pretty sure it was Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who at least showed some interest in Hinduism when he wrote about “Vril” as a magic power, Vril being sperm. Having occupied India, B-L studied local Tantra and certain superstitions and as a tourist promoted Phallicism in the West. These people stole everything not nailed down. Where are the Greeks’ Elgin Marbles? Must be nice for you to be able to visit the museums and see all that stolen Glory in a cold, northern island with shitty weather and food. (Okay, the Arab and other immigrant food there is good, I hear. Greek Mediterranean food, I understand at the Tommy Robinson Hate/ Kill the Muslims mass rallies, nearly one million people in London recently (?– could be wrong here, feel free to correct me if so) oddly the participants widely purchased Schwarma cuisine.
Do you know your own history? The enclosure of the Commons by the Aristo and Royal classes during the 17th-18th centuries, to starve the peasants and make them feudal slaves. (Until African slaves could be obtained.) The Witch burnings? The hunting down and killing of gay men until at least the 1950s, “fags” to be burnt alive. Shit, even elite servants of the Crown murdered without a 2nd thought– Alan Turing who helped win WW II chemically castrated for “indecency” until he offs himself with cyanide? The public school beatings and sexual abuse that went on for many decades, as a way of “training up British manhood” for Empire? (Time for a little diversion here in the thread– Yes, being treated cruelly or abused can make a person better or more empathetic, it can also make them Monsters. It depends on the individual, we all make choices.) Referencing Empathy, isn’t the Legendary British “Stiff Upper Lip” just brutalized people trained to not feel and to spread brutality and cruelty to “the Lessers?”
Now I don’t want to be a hypocrite here and pretend that these flaws aren’t massively recapitulated in the US Empire, as we are the Brits’ horrible spawn, along with the Aussies (fine with genocide as were the “Manifest Destiny” crowd that Trump wants to bring back), and others in the Anglophone world too diverse and widespread to mention, spread across Asia, the Caribbean and elsewhere. And Kipling distills the importance of “The White Man’s Burden” to “civilize” these dusky little Savages. You did them a “favor”, right? Hell, the far-right in the US thinks destroying the African Kingdoms during the Age of Empire and bringing “blacks” here did them a favor, due to the “gifts” of Christianity and greater prosperity (looted from the colonies) so it’s all okay. Multiple wrongs make a Right, it’s a kind of Alchemy.
Now I have to speak from my personal experience again here, as I was rather fortunate (imo) to come from a diverse European background which mixes Northern Europe (French, Irish, possibly Scot’s Irish (little of that thankfully), German (gross, I hate them, apart from some of their philosophers and Romantic Era figures), with an 11% dollop of “other”/ Mediterranean Spanish and Sardinian, plus 1% undefined East Asian (likely Atilla the Hun legacy, a great grandmother x 29 raped on the Austrian plains.)
Neither of my parents were eligible to be WASPs, which both badly wanted– my dad due to the White Chimpanzee legacy, if he had left the Catholic Church (which he did, internally at least) and converted to Protestantism, his mother would’ve killed herself; my mother was dark-skinned as was my grandmother and 2 great aunts, and only one of my great-aunts was not deeply ashamed of that given the era they grew up in. I too was quite dark-skinned (a blessing) until my late 50s, when other Hispanic people in NorCal stopped stopping me on the street to ask for directions in Spanish.
Anglo-Saxons are garbage, racist and with a stick rammed up their ass, in a very high percentage, in my estimation. Sorry to say it, it’s just obvious. But yes, there are people who train themselves not to be insufferable Royalist twits with their nose in the air, to be actual warm-blooded human beings, plenty of good examples too. But, you’re still ruled by ridiculous German princeling goons, isn’t the pedophile Epstein pal Royal now a Mountbatten in his disgrace? The House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, innit? Had to change that and not rub the Goth/ Deutsche thing in the actual British Isles’ populace in their face during WW I, as we all know.
Now even when I point out overly obvious things like this, which the study of history has led me to as a matter of discrimination, I have to acknowledge the flip side of the coin. There have been wonderful spirits of freedom and Enlightenment in British history and culture, and there are many I venerate. Shakespeare was obviously insightful and talented (though I greatly prefer his contemporary, Francois Rabelais for satirical wit), William Blake was a true bard of Cosmic Consciousness, centuries before hippy culture. Orwell started well as an Anarchist, I guess he didn’t like kicking around the Burmese peasants as a cop, I have to admire that. He was, however, like many Brits of his social class a despicable anti-Semite (only occasionally aired that in public) and the Stalinist sabotage of the Anarchist militias in Spain later made him an anti-Communist snitch, pretty disgusting imo also. Aleister Crowley was a great advocate for sex, drugs and poetry (pre-Rock’ n Roll), an amazing scholar, mountaineer and social critic as well as philosopher and enemy of the various German Reichs. He did however spy for British Intelligence over many decades, including against Leftists, but very effectively against the Germans. For this reason his overt homosexuality did not get him killed like Turing, even though he made a devil’s bargain for that protection.
Alan Moore is a brilliant firebrand for freedom and Magick. Some of my knowledge of how shitty recent modern Britain comes from having 7 of 8 issues of his wonderful Dodgem Logic periodical which he put out c. 2010-11; he covered well all the repression, the destruction of the Health system and the violence and ugliness of the political culture. (Sadly when I moved across country recently, the moving company disappeared all but 2 of my issues.) As a teenager I loved the Beatles, the Who, later punk folks like Mark E. Smith “Totally Wired”, John Peel’s programming, etc. The Justified Ancients of MuMu’s “God Save the Queen” parody, banned by Abba for trademark use, “Well, when I was young we knew just who to hate, from the teachers in our class to the leaders of our State.” Monty Python’s Flying Circus was great too, all these figures are oppositional figures to the gray, intolerant majority culture.
On the other hand, you have racist, fabulist bullshit like James Bond, by Ian Fleming. (Fleming knew and respected Crowley, wanted him to interrogate one of the Reich defectors who’d escaped to England, but his superiors blocked that.) Now there was an answer to Fleming that showed the grubby pettiness of the spy game, “John Le Carre.” Truth-tellers are always to be respected.
Once I discovered Latin-American culture in my early 20s, I was much happier to embrace that part of my heritage rather than the horrible German-Anglo white bullshit, that’s just how it was. Now, Spanish is like English an international language because they also had a horrible, genocidal Imperial culture that thrived for some centuries, even dominated the superior Northern Whites like the Dutch and others. (I saw Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights up close in a Spanish Museum, looting sometimes ran south as well as mostly North.) We are nearly ALL implicated in horrible historical violence, theft and cruelty. I have a former high-school student friend who identifies as Mexican-Xicano, and when I told him that I felt my Mediterranean heritage of 10% was a saving grace for me culturally, he didn’t accept that, as to him the Spanish are nothing but oppressors. Could/ did I naysay this? Of course not, he is as locked into his own identity as I am (somewhat) to mine?
Time to wrap this up, shooting fish in a barrel is fun but a guilty pleasure. Look at your political class for fuck’s sake!! The Iron Lady with her “TINA” and “there is no society, there is only the Family” fascist ideology. Starving the miners, starving Bobby Sands and the Irish freedom-fighters to death slowly. Right now there are Palestine Action members being jailed for “terrorism” charges on hunger strike, certainly many will die or be permanently damaged. Your fricking country drove George Galloway and his wife out coz George dared to say a genocide was a genocide. Richard Medhurst arrested for “terrorism” charges, (later dropped and handed over to Austria), Kit Klarenberg of the GrayZone also driven into exile, too many other lives destroyed to list . . . People in Plasticine Action (name change to get off the Terrorist Official Designation) still won’t get an actual jury Trial, they will be instructed by the Judge that they must convict, the defendant’s actions (property damage only, no violence against other human beings) cannot be defended by the fact that they are saving lives, civilian lives including elders, women and children, that is “inadmissible” under Imperial Law.
The sick Russophobia in Britain by the Elites goes back centuries– They lost the Crimean War, Eisenhower (for fuck’s sake) did not let them steal the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt alongside the Zionist Entity and France. MI-6 planning repeated Ukrainian Fascist-Banderist attacks on Russian Civilians, making a mountain fall atop a commuter train and other fun hi-jinks, hits on the Crimean bridge and attempts at Trump-style Ship Piracy in the North Sea and elsewhere. Your “Labour” government is just as fascist, or moreso, as Thatcher was back in the day; Sir Keir Starmer cutting heating for the poor and elderly, Social Services and Health across the board, letting the waterways be polluted with toxins coz “We don’t care”, sending billions to Ukro Neo-Fascists. Isn’t there a 100 year treaty to give Ukraine British gelt? (Not that that will succeed.) “Leaders” like Boris Johnson (he “dated” Ghislaine Maxwell at University, quelle coincidence, eh?), Theresa May whose Reaganomics were so extreme they ousted her quite quickly, Starmer obsessed with protecting the Zionist Entity and killing more brown people. These people will NEVER let go of their shame over losing “the Empire” over which the Sun never set. Your economy is shit, you have like 2 battleships, and Islamophobia is rampant (outside of the restaurant trade.) A ghoul and American fellator like Tony Blair/ B.liar who has killed millions across the Muslim world and profited handsomely (worth $500,000 last I heard), also “New Labour” (gag!) but someone like Corbyn must be demonized and driven out.
Even your fake “Left” is far-right: I started watching a bit of Owen Jones as (to a point) he seemed to be strongly opposed to the Gaza Genocide. Then I noted that he will not appear at an event with Aaron Mate of the GrayZone because he is “suspect”, doesn’t want all Russians dead, has smeared in passing Roger Waters (another brave anti-Fascist from the heart of Empire, like Moore). Those idiots at “Novara Media”, like Aaron Bastani. Okay, they signal “Woke” performatively (like Hillary) with actual brown and black correspondents, but I saw Bastani interviewing some Racist Old Imperial Fossil from the Empire who bragged (vainly) that “Putin’s gonna lose his stupid country” and Aaron clapped with glee at this delusion. Owen Jones rants incessantly about Evil “Pyutin” and how he needs to die, I guess he is fine with Banderist Ideology in Ukraine. These clowns imbibe Russophobia (since they defeated the Reich, Germans and Anglos are the true Anglo-Saxon Master race I guess) with their mothers’ milk, evidently.
So yeah, in my mind Britain has been a shithole culturally and politically for quite some time. There are honest British critics out there like Alexander Mercouris who see it and say it. And Mercouris is Anglo-Greek, he’s proud of both but he at least sees which side of his heritage has gone off the rails and cops to it. He hasn’t been driven out yet like Galloway or Medhurst either. I know I am judging from a distance, but the evidence is very clear: the modern UK is a Racist Death Cult, not quite on the level of the Zionist Entity, but they are surely giving them their all in competition.
If my points are mistaken, please feel free to respond. Thanks.
Dan Kelly
‘Trump has withdrawn Carney’s imvitation to the BoP, so many of the disparaging comments have become moot points.’
Principles are never moot points.
If Carney had any ethics whatsoever he would have immediately condemned the monstrous ‘Board of Peace’ and said that while Canada will continue to work with the US on some things , it will in no way be part of a ‘board’ that in fact offers no voice to the people in need of peace from ongoing ethnic cleansing and outright genocide – the Palestinians.
Then he could seamlessly move to talking about swapping camola oil for EV’s (49,000 of them) and how this is an example of Canada working with China as welll.
Perhaps Carney’s Canada could be the peaceful bridge between the US and China!
—
The prescription Carney laid out was the geopolitical equivalent of ‘meet the new boss, same as the old boss.’ After his bold diagnosis of a broken old order, he described how Canada was building a new order and what proceeded to spill forth from his mouth was a rehashed neoliberal word salad:
“…a comprehensive strategic partnership with the EU, new European defence procurement arrangements…12 other trade and security deals on four continents…building plurilateral trade…a new trading block of 1.5 billion people….free trade pacts with India, ASEAN, Thailand, Philippines and Mercosur.”
Pointing to how he’s building this new world in Canada, he said he’s “cut taxes on incomes, on capital gains and business investment…removed all federal barriers to interprovincial trade…fast-tracked a trillion dollars of investment in energy, AI, critical minerals, new trade corridors…doubling our defence spending.”
A truly visionary future of less tax, more guns, tanks, mines and global neoliberalism! Get on board!
And not one mention of ecological disaster, not one mention that Canada being an energy superpower, as he described it, is dooming billions of people to increasingly unsurvivable futures.
He did at one point say “we need to live the truth…and this means building what we claim to believe in…creating institutions and agreements that function as described…building something better, stronger, more just.”
But we know this is just rhetorical dressing. It won’t mean anything material.
It won’t mean leaving any of the oil in the ground.
It won’t mean respecting indigenous communities in Canada whose lands and communities have been destroyed by tar sands mining.
It won’t mean Canada reassesses its 2019 trade deal with Israel.
We know this won’t mean prosecuting the forty-nine Canadians known to have participated in the genocide of Gaza.
Appendage of empire
In the last three years Canada’s department of defence has awarded nearly 300 contracts worth $19 billion to American arms firms.
For all Carney’s tough talking about American hegemony and its turn against allies, we know this won’t mean he’ll stop buying billions of dollars worth of American war machinery.
For all his tough talk, we know none of what matters in North America is threatened.
We know it won’t mean Canada halts this reciprocal arms dealing with empire which sees it sell $4.4 billion dollars worth to the US annually.
We know this won’t mean Canada turns its back on its largest buyer of oil and stops selling the US four million barrels a day.
We know it won’t mean Canada rescinds an agreement it updated just a few months ago facilitating cross-border cooperation with ICE.
We know it won’t mean Canada withdraws from Norad and the system of real-time, always-on intelligence sharing with the US.
Carney also said that as a result of the breakdown of international law, countries “…buy insurance, increase options in order to rebuild sovereignty – sovereignty that was once grounded in rules, but will be increasingly anchored in the ability to withstand pressure.”
Again, a selective and contradictory statement.
Sovereignty, as he admitted minutes previously, has never been “grounded in rules,” but grounded in hard power. And we know that he doesn’t believe the enemies of empire should protect their sovereignty with hard power or nuclear weapons.
Carney’s speech was a masterclass in avoiding responsibility for his and the west’s part in the selective application and breakdown of international law.
It was a masterclass in rhetorical sleights of hand, positioned as a fresh vision for the future while rehashing the core tenets of global imperialism and neoliberalism.
Carney is being acclaimed as some kind of righteous truth-teller, but he admitted nothing we didn’t know.
This speech could have been made at any time in the last five, twenty or indeed seventy years.
https://www.donotpanic.news/p/the-monstrous-confessions-of-mark
—
A couple comments to Nate Bear’s article ‘The Monstrous Confessions Of Mark Carney:
‘Well stated, as always! As a Canadian, my critical thinking skills snap into overdrive when a speech is universally lauded, but especially when it is lauded by both the average Canadian, who places complete faith in our banker PM and simultaneously by his billionaire neoliberal audience at Davos. If Carney was reading the room, it was the room he gave the speech in.’
‘Even people thoroughly sick of the Liberal government voted for Carney for fear of ending up with Pierre Poilievre, a real disaster-in-waiting. So we got a high-level banker and business as usual.
One of the very first things he decided to do was fold Women & Gender Equality into another portfolio where it would no doubt get shuffled to the bottom of the pile. People pushed back and the plan was dropped. But then it was revealed that the WAGE budget was getting slashed by over 80%. Now there’s more pipeline talk while Indigenous communities and pleas for more renewable energy go unheard. And people shrug and say, “At least he’s not Justin Trudeau.” Or Pierre Poilievre.
Carney is a likeable guy who dresses nicely, smiles a lot, plays well with others. So Canadian. He’s better in some ways than the alternative. But why is that good enough? When someone is lauded as a hero for merely stating the obvious, it tells you how desperate we’ve become.’
—
https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=j9ReW4qQP_E&t=126
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9ReW4qQP_E&t=126s
Wallflower
Like and Subscribe:
You wrote to me “Do you really need a source to tell you what anyone with more than a brainstem should be able to conclude?”
Turns out I was right: Canada did NOT sign on to the “Board of Peace”. Whether you like Carney or not, the fact is that his government did nothing more that signal a willingness to look at the proposal (I would not have had them even do that much), before Carney’s well-received speech at Davos caused the petulant Trump to rescind his offer.
So, Canada did not sign on, which was my original point.
So, yes- my humble little brainstem got it right, and your high-powered synapses fired with no ammo.
Dan Kelly
In his speech he says okay, let’s be honest, from day one we knew that the ‘rules-based international order’ was a fraud, it was hypocritical. But we benefit from it. Because we’re friends of the hegemon, the great empire. And so it benefits us. But now that the empire is turning against us, now that the empire wants to cannibalize us, we must NOW speak truth to power.
Okay?
So you can imagine the hypocrisy.
And I don’t think it’s much of a strategy because anyone with a brain can see through the hypocrisy, the travesty, and the self-indulgence in his speech.
It’s not really a grand strategy. It’s more of a lament. It’s lamentation of, you know, we used to be best friends with the Americans but now America has abandoned us, we’re a jilted lover, and now we’re forced to band together and seek a new ally in China.
So I read the speech more like that.
And he has three grand suggestions for moving forward.
The first of course is to ‘speak truth to power’ – to recognize that it’s a very different situation and be honest with ourselves.
The second is to create a new system of ‘rules-based international order’ – of institutions that can counterbalance the folding of America.
And the third is to rely more heavily on Canadian capital and talent.
The problem with Canada – and you know this – is everyone’s fleeing. Capital is fleeing, talent is fleeing Canada.
So Canada’s being hollowed out.
So, as a banker – and Mark Carney has worked for Goldman Sachs, he was the governor of the Bank of Canada and then he went to England and became the first foreign governor of the Bank of England – he is a banker first for transnational capital.
And the reality is that Canada the nation – and I hate to say this because I grew up there – but Canada is a toxic asset right now.
Prices are sky high, forty percent of the Canadian economy is real estate speculation.
Canada is a glorified money laundering operation.
It’s lost all its legitimacy by supporting the genocide in Gaza.
There are hundreds of thousands of homeless in Canada yet Carney still commits to sending tens of billions of dollars to Ukraine for that pointless war.
Canadian companies refuse to invest in Canada and are fleeing the country.
So Canada is a toxic asset.
And what do you do with a toxic asset?
I you are a banker, what you do is you sell it to foreigners.
And those foreigners are the Qataris and the Chinese.
https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=uHIdRgFypNo&t=715
https://youtu.be/uHIdRgFypNo?t=715
Earlier in the video Professor Jiang Xueqin talks about Iran’s ‘nuclear option’ of shutting down the Strait of Hormuz.
You have a situation whereby US Security State views China as priority 1A to priority 1 of ‘resecuring’ the immediate realm around itself in the ‘western hemisphere.’
China depends on Iran’s oil, Israel wants Iran gone, China has given Iran BeiDou but still does much business with Israel and hasn’t even pulled ambassadors. It defers to the UN which has always been set up so that UNSC is final arbiter and the five permanent most powerful members can all veto each other which means that, structurally, there never really needs to be any true consensus – which just so happens to work out fine for the most powerful.
For a time.
—
https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=JN1kJTcz59Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN1kJTcz59Q
Wallflower
Like & Subscribe wrote:
“ Do you really need a source to tell you what anyone with more than brainstem should be able to conclude?”
Turns out I was right: Carney never signed on to Trump’s “Board of Peace”, only signaled a willingness to look at it (which I wish he had not).
(This has nothing to do, BTW, with me being a Carney fan: I will back any Canadian pol who takes the most effective line for my country against Trump).
Trump rescinded his invite (after Carney’s well-received Davos speech) and the Canadian government refused to entertain a billion buck entrance fee.
So, I guess my humble litte brainstem got it right, while your finely calibrated synapses
fired without loading the ammo.
Like & Subscribe
A picture is worth a thousand words they say. This one is worth a billion. It says it all.
https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/mark-carney-prime-minister-canada-116813898.jpg?resize=1024,683&quality=75&strip=all
That was December 5th. Yucking it up. Meanwhile, Canada still has a country-breaking affordable housing crisis and many thanks to Donald Trump, Canadians are lloking past that or ignoring it while falling prey to Carnage’s performative politics.
Edmund Johnson
@Mark Level Thank you for your detailed response, especially regarding your own background and experiences. I get much more where you’re coming from now.
What I think you’re saying is that the “shit-hole” description refers to British history, and British leadership historically and down to the present day, including the appalling legal situation regarding Gaza protesters. I certainly share your views on nearly all of those. I wouldn’t agree with your characterisation of a high percentage of Anglo-Saxons as being garbage, but you do say that’s in your estimation, so no worries, we can differ on that.
I had interpreted the phrase “the UK is a shit-hole” as meaning that the entire country is a cesspit of crime, drug abuse and poverty (hence my references to those in my response), but that was down to me. And to re-iterate what I said in my post, I don’t dispute that there are people living in terrible conditions in the UK.
@Feral Finster
Yes, I was definitely cherry picking stats, to try and tease out what the poster actually meant by giving some counter examples. I have been there, and the UK is not a shit-hole in my interpretation of the word, though there is much room for improvement. I agree though that the immigrants are OK, mostly way better than OK.
Carborundum
Been mulling this around for a couple of days – overall, I completely agree with the policy goal, but I think 90% is too high for capital gains. That would very negatively affect the free flow of capital – if I’m worried about too high a taxation rate, I’m not going to redeploy my capital into other areas where, if we’ve structured the system properly [big if, but a fellow can dream], it does good things for the economy and society.
What I keep coming back to (don’t recall whether I’ve mentioned this previously or not) is the central precept of the Carter Commission – that it doesn’t matter how a dollar of income is generated, it should all get taxed equally. As I understand it, the Commission advocated a system where all personal income would be taxed equally (to be clear, there was still a progressive rate according to income levels, but there weren’t these distinctions between *types* of individual income). The notion was that one accounts for the corporate taxes that have been paid and then grosses up to make sure that the end taxation rate matches the level of personal income paid by the individual tax filer. The issue then is really making sure that marginal tax rates are set high enough.
Ian Welsh
Carborundum,
no, all types of income aren’t equal, that’s a fairness thing (and not even necessarily fair, though that’s another essay), not a policy thing. Different types of income do different things. (For example if you want higher demand you want reduce taxes on poor and middle class even more and up them on high income people, because people who make less money spend almost all of it. Give $5K to a rich person, and they probably spend almost none of it. Give 5K to someone earning 40K a year, and odds are they’ll spend most of it.
Capital taxes should be set to encourage specific types of investmnts, and short term investments (trading, really) don’t tend to turn into investment in production or technology.
The reason you tax capital gains at a high rate if they’re sold quickly is that you want long term investments, and you don’t want executives who give themselves options to be able to cash out playing quarterly games.
While 90% is high, maye too high, when I was younger this is actually the way capital gains worked. Back in the early 90s iiirc. Short term capital gains were taxed higher, and the rate reduced if you held on. You could also make it progressive, perhaps. I’ll have to think on that. (ie, your the top capital gains rate is 90% if you make more than 100K a year in capital gains, say, and lowers as you make less.)
Again, there should be some exceptions: primary residences, for example. Estates. Maybe some others I can’t think of right now.
The problem right now is that stuff is being done on a short term investment basis. You need to encourage rich people and corporations to reinvest in actual production, not take money out quickly.
It also shuts down condo flipping hard.
The number drops each year, too. You can fiddle with the numbers, I’d say the minimum you want to do is have the bottom rate be reached at about 10 years.
Of course this is only one change, there’s a bunch of stuff that needs to be done. Another is to reduce capital flows out of the country to make comparative advantage actually work. (See Ricardo’s caveat.)
Basically you don’t want money chasing short term gains. (Other exceptions would probably include some futures markets, but they need to be tamed too, because they cause vast distortion in prices of commodities, making them not reflect supply and demand, which you actually want them to.)
Then there’s currency rates, which again, you want based on on export/import primarily and much less influenced by capital flows. For the reason why see Jane Jacobs “Cities and the Economy Nations.” Her argument is, to my mind, very sound.
Ech. I could write an article on this, and I’m sure i have written a few. I’ve just written so many even I can’t find them any more.
Ian Welsh
Oh, and if anyone reading this has any influence with CSIS or the RCMP please encourage them to switch at least two thirds of their counter-intel to stopping American destabilization of Canada. Russia and China are not an existential threat, the US is definitely trying to encourage Alberta separatism, and I bet they’ll happily fund the Quebecois separatists too.
If we’re smart, we’ll figure out how to shut down as many American NGOs as possible too.
Carborundum
Sorry, took me a while to come back to this – was writing all day yesterday.
I’m receptive to the idea that not all types of income are equal, but it’s one of those things where I worry about the cure being worse than the disease. The distortions that we have because we treat capital gains and wage income differently are so big and pervasive that I don’t think we even necessarily see all of the ramifications.
Leaving that aside, one of the things to consider is that I would envision a Carter-type approach having much higher marginal (and, significantly, effective) tax rates on capital gains than we’ve ever seen. Contrary to the narrative that is out there, we’ve actually never taxed capital gains at the levels you’re thinking of in this country. Highest marginal would probably be somewhere right around 40% back in the early 90s when the inclusion rate was 75% and the highest marginal personal income tax rates were topping 50%. People lose track of this, but when personal income tax rates were really high here back in the 60s, we didn’t tax capital gains at all. That we started, even at a 50% inclusion rate, was one of the major innovations of the Carter Commission. (I’m sure the introduction of capital gains taxation was one of the reasons why marginal rates declined.)
My view, a large majority of what you’re speaking of as policy goals, which I completely agree with BTW, are actually built in to a Carter-type approach just by virtue of the structure. By definition, as part of personal income tax, it’s progressive – issue then becomes setting the marginal rates appropriately (and the rates become a lot easier to set if we aren’t applying different rules to different forms of income and have to deal with substitution). If all forms of income are taxed on a level footing, stock buybacks become much less attractive / justifiable and the options shenanigans (which there is a non-trivial amount of out there) basically disappear. Estates get dealt with via deemed disposition on death, which also closes out the primary residence gains sheltering and pays the government its due at the highest marginal rate most owners are likely to ever be subject to (which seems fair for the benefit conferred during life). I haven’t thought through all the aspects in detail, but it does seem to tick a lot of boxes.
I think one of the challenges with taxation policy is our impulse to do things that are too specific and too targeted, thinking that will help us better address particular issues and limit risk. As an example, we have all sorts of initiatives related to corporate taxes on smaller enterprises (including treatment of capital gains) designed to do things like encourage longer term investment, have people keep their capital working in their companies, etc. However laudable the intent it has resulted in some pretty serious structural difficulties. When you dig into it, you find that one of the biggest drivers of lower productivity for Canadian firms compared to other similar jurisdictions is that we have really pronounced threshold effects, with firms clustering just under the points where various of these initiatives would phase out (the other factors rounding out the big three are nature of the industry and foreign control). That sort of perverse effect, which we could probably find dozens of examples of makes me really skeptical about how clever and focused any given policy. To my mind, one of the principles for successfully managing complex and discontinuous systems (which taxation would definitely be) should be simple, wide scope rules.
I think one of the things that those of us on the outside need to remember is that we implicitly model ideas about corporate taxation based mainly on very large publicly traded companies (or at least that’s how it seems to me). However, while that is important, it doesn’t actually seem to be the primary thing Finance is thinking about when it comes to corporate taxation. The real meat and potatoes of corporate taxation that occupies a lot of their focus is privately held small and medium sized business and from what I’ve seen a big chunk of that really boils down to personal taxation in a corporate wrapper.