Isaac Schrödinger

Pumping the GDP

Canada’s annualized GDP growth for Q1 2019 was only 0.4%. Population growth over that time was 1.2%.

Canada’s economy thud in fact DECLINED by 0.8% on per capita terms.

— Stefan Molyneux (@StefanMolyneux) 18 October 2019

The average Syrian imports won't make the same as the average Canadians. Worse, they, like other immigrants, will send billions of dollars back home to their relatives every year. And that's just the sorry economic picture. The increasing cultural, political, and societal chaos is much worse.

No skin in the game

Reality:

Give poor people welfare
you get more poor people

Give single mothers free stuff
you get more fatherless kids

Allow corporations to be legal shields for liability
you get more predatory execs

Give people free health care
they take worse care of their health

— Stefan Molyneux (@StefanMolyneux) 16 October 2019

How not to help the poor

As minimum wage goes up, employers have the following options to stay in business:

1. Fire a few workers.
2. Reduce employee hours.
3. Increase the prices of products.
4. Some combinations of the above.

Sometimes, that's not enough.

Just as predicted, the $15 minimum wage is killing vulnerable city small businesses, with the low-margin restaurant industry one of the hardest-hit as it also faces a separate mandatory wage hike for tipped staffers.

In Sunday’s Post, Jennifer Gould Keil reported on the death of Gabriela’s Restaurant and Tequila Bar — closing after 25 years.

What's insidious about all this is that the poor workers who were paying the bills making $12 an hour are now getting the true minimum: $0. Also, it'll be very difficult for them to find a similar job as other restaurants are also firing workers!

Other eateries share the pain. In an August survey of its members, the NYC Hospitality Alliance found more than three-quarters have had to cut employee hours, more than a third eliminated jobs last year and half plan to cut staff this year.

“It’s death by a thousand cuts,” the Hospitality Alliance’s Andrew Rigie told The Post, since “there’s only so many times you can increase the price of a burger and a bowl of pasta.”

Reality of rent control

Henry Hazlitt:

Government control of the rents of houses and apartments is a special form of price control. Most of its consequences are substantially the same as those of price control in general, but a few call for special consideration.

Hazlitt showcases the long term destructiveness of rent controls. Many people don't see this as he concisely explains here: 

When unreasonable price controls are placed on articles of immediate consumption, like bread, for example, the bakers can simply refuse to continue to bake and sell it. A shortage becomes immediately obvious, and the politicians are compelled to raise the ceilings or repeal them. But housing is very durable. It may take several years before tenants begin to feel the results of the discouragement to new building, and to ordinary maintenance and repair. It may take even longer before they realize that the scarcity and deterioration of housing is directly traceable to rent control.

The Folly of Price Controls

First order thinking: rent control keeps rents low.
Real world (higher order empirical) reasoning: rent controls keep people out of the rental market by constraining supply, and letting rent-seekers (literally) to keep cheaper than market appartments.

Always failed. Alwaysl. https://t.co/e22IYpQ7sb

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) 4 October 2019

Also, the quality of the real estate deteriorates. Apartments could have thin drafty windows, chipped paint, inefficient appliances, a leaky roof, and scores of vermin but people will still line up to sign the lease.

Why should the landlords sink money into fixing anything when they can't increase the rent and there's a ridiculous waiting list?

The city’s queue for rent-controlled housing is so long that it’s being considered by the Guinness Book of World Records. On average, it takes nine years to be granted a rent-controlled property – and that jumps to two decades in some of the most popular neighbourhoods.

Rent control (maximum price) is the opposite of minimum wage. They both sound good and quite a few people even benefit from them but overall they severely distort the market and cause a lot of problems. Unfortunately, such policies appeal to ignorant voters who don't, or can't, see the second order effects.

It's bogus! It's a scam!

Won't you feel sorry for wahmen?

1950s: Women make so much less money than men.

OH, THOSE POOR, VICTIMIZED WOMEN!

2010s: Women make so much more money than men.

OH, THOSE POOR, VICTIMIZED WOMEN!

Man of Action

Vox Day:

If you've noticed, we don't advertise any of our projects anywhere. Arkhaven, Castalia, Infogalactic, VFM and Unauthorized all refuse to pay-to-play on Amazon, Facebook, Google, or anywhere else. We would rather rely upon our core supporters, focus upon serving them, and gradually grow that strong foundation than try to catch a big wave on Amazon or wherever.

Why? Because the wave belongs to the wave maker and is entirely under its control! We've seen, repeatedly, that even million-selling Amazon authors have ZERO support outside of Amazon.

Vox Day is building platforms for books, comics, TV, and movies where the structures are anti-fragile.

Forget material support, the majority of the Right doesn't even bother to provide links to his efforts. They'd rather keep crying and bitching about their enemies in the Leftist-controlled media world.

Won't you feel sorry for poor Americans?

Most Americans would probably have a hard time wrapping their heads around a $350,000 salary. [...] The thing is, that kind of income, while relatively huge, is barely enough, according to Dogen, for a family to lead a comfortable life in coastal counties — where almost half of the nation’s population calls home.

The unintentionally funny monthly budget shows an after-tax income of $18,653 with $121 (!) left after all the expenses are deducted. This family makes over a quarter million dollars a year but a tiny 1% decline in income would put them in the red!

Yeah, that's not an income issue -- that's a severe spending problem. 

Shaalan the Shyster

Effective 1 May 2019, CFA Institute imposed a Revocation of membership and of the right to use the CFA designation on Hussein Hamdy Shaalan (Montreal, Quebec), a lapsed charterholder member.

What did Hussein do?

CFA Institute found that, starting in June 2016, an investor in the United Arab Emirates hired Shaalan to manage and invest money she had set aside for retirement. He met with the investor and told her about his investment strategies. Afterwards, Shaalan emailed her a document in which he downplayed the extreme risks associated with his strategies, putting the potential loss at 10% or less, while the potential profit was touted as 60% to 80% per annum.

Anyone offering annual double-digit percentage returns is a scam artist.

In just 22 days, however, Shaalan had lost $195,000 of the $200,000 that the investor had deposited into the account.

Just how stupid is the client? This stupid:

[...] the client wired Shaalan an additional $45,000 to invest. Shaalan told her that the $45,000 infusion would help him tune the mathematical and cognitive limits of his investment strategy and potentially recover the $195,000 lost.

In the end, Hussein "The Shyster" Shaalan lost 98% of all the money that gullible woman gave him.

Can only kill the rich once

An excellent illustration of how theft and socialism works for a short while and then there's no money left.

A trillion here, a trillion there

The intellectual caliber of the debate is best illustrated at the 5:55 mark in the video. One has to be an ignorant fool to think that any company in the world could pay $800 billion (!) in taxes every year considering that no company even pulls in that much in total revenue.

Trouble Down Under

This (844,800) is an insane level of immigration for a tiny population. In relative terms, this would be like if India took in 45 million immigrants in a year!

Australia's immigration rate has surged to a new record high with more than 115,000 permanent arrivals in just one month.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics released new immigration figures on Thursday, hours after Prime Minister Scott Morrison called an election for May 18.

The overseas arrivals data showed 115,100 new people declared Australia as their new home in February, as annual immigration soared by a record 844,800.

Life in the modern city of the West: Cheap labor, lower wages, higher rents, traffic jams, spikes in theft, a few dead bodies now and then, and increasing hostility -- all thanks to this cultural enrichment that the young generation will have to reverse.

Men =/= Women

Given the amount of time and resources it takes to train a doctor, this is horribly inefficient:

More and more women doctors are cutting work hours or leaving the medical profession altogether to spend time with their families, findings show.

Researchers found 40 percent of female physicians either reduced their hours to part-time or quit working, according to a study published Friday in JAMA Network Open. Experts worry this exodus could add to the growing doctor shortage in the United States.

The next part is both predictable and funny.

The researchers asked 167 male and 177 female doctors about their preferences to work either part-time or full-time. Then they produced word clouds from those answers.

The typical words that jumped out for men were "need money," "loan" and "financial."

By contrast, the terms that stood out for women were "childcare responsibilities," "balancing work" and "family and children".

Instead of attracting more men to the field, the authors offer their vapid prescriptions which won't solve the problem.

Data breached

Capital One got hacked:

A hacker gained access to personal information from more than 100 million Capitol One credit applications, the bank said Monday as U.S. authorities arrested a suspect in the case.

That's huge.

Capital One Financial Corp., the nation's seventh-largest commercial bank with $373.6 billion in assets as of June 30, is the latest U.S. company to suffer a major data breach in recent years.

Traitors in charge

An excellent piece in the Vancouver Sun that showcases the ugly reality of increased immigration levels because of the Liberal Party of Canada:

The number of non-permanent foreign workers arriving in Canada each year has doubled in the past decade, escalating particularly after the federal Liberal government was elected in 2015.

Partly as a result of the increasing flow of guest workers, UBC economist David Green and Carleton University’s Christopher Worswick say in a paper that new immigrants are doing “worse and worse” in regards to earned incomes. And it’s Canada’s low-wage workers who are suffering the most.

Yup.

In line with the research of American economist Giovanni Peri and the University of Ottawa’s Pierre Brochu, Green described how owners of a Tim Horton’s franchise, a café or a supermarket often try to justify bringing in more guest workers by saying they can’t find anyone to fill the low-skill slot.

“So they go to their local MP and say, ‘I’m in trouble here. I can’t get enough workers for my front counter.’ The real response to them should be, ‘Well, pay them more.’ But it’s not the answer they want to hear, because they want to make more profit,” Green said.

The numbers are quite shocking: 250,000 "international mobility" workers, 300,000 new immigrants, 400,000 students -- all of whom drive down the wages of poor workers in Canada. That's nearly a million non-citizens who're also driving up the rent and increasing real estate prices. Businesses, landlords, and the banks are happy while the poor and the middle class gets squeezed.

Are you a neo-Nazi?

And if you have doubts that @clairlemon caters to and delivers the arguments for a neo-Nazi audience, this is a sample (I got zillions today).
Calling neo-Nazis neo-Nazis is accurate:
It all starts with looking for a scientific basic for the degradation of *groups qua groups*. pic.twitter.com/gDljwX2LSz

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) 28 July 2019

Skills and intelligence are factors that contribute to the difference. They, of course, don't tell the whole story. For example: family dynamics, nutrition, education, ambition, personal effort, time preferences, religion, etc. also explain some of the group differences. However, intelligence is a core component. It doesn't matter how much hard work a certain Pakistani kid puts in to becoming an astronaut, he won't get there if he can't even pass high school math. Generations of common inbreeding significantly impacts such children.

Comparing the two countries, the average Japanese is significantly more intelligent than the average Pakistani. Look around you. How many products do you see that are "Made in Japan" vs. "Made in Pakistan"? It is what it is.

Yes I know I am rude by calling IQ people imbeciles (which they are). But they are classifying entire populations as idiots. People who already have enough problems.

I am going to upset the "Fake free-speech" @Quillette crowd & "Klueeeeless Claire" @clairlemon a bit more.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) 27 July 2019

I don't know why Taleb thinks that a race or country that has a low average IQ must have a population of 100% idiots. Non-White countries have doctors, engineers, scientists, etc. Who the hell even made the claim that all of them are idiots?

Fragile setup

Two Halifax-area entrepreneurs are banking on the honesty of their customers. [...]

There is no one waiting to take your cash or process your payment — customers are trusted to take what they want and pay using the tablet and card reader or by dropping cash in a mailbox.

This food kiosk is in an international airport. A pilferer would be on dozens of cameras. So, the store will work in this context.

One such shop located in the lobby of the Manila Police Department's headquarters — just a few metres away from a security guard — had to be closed after someone repeatedly raided the cash box.

Yup. One asshole is enough to ruin the system.

He said if the project continues to be successful, he would like to expand it to schools, universities, hospitals and shopping centres.

He's going to learn the hard way.

Can't Trust CannTrust

The latest scandal in the cannabis space in Canada:

The chief executive of CannTrust Holdings Inc. appeared in a promotional video filmed directly outside an unlicensed cannabis grow room at the company’s Pelham, Ont., facility in early 2019, according to a former employee who was present when the video was shot.

When this story broke, it was shocking to hear that, literally, thousands of kilograms of marijuana was grown in unlicensed space at CannTrust. This wasn't the doing of some ambitious, rogue employee. The top executives knew exactly what was going on.

The room was also referenced in a Globe and Mail report on Tuesday that quoted a November 2018 email by CannTrust’s director of quality and compliance, Graham Lee, telling several top company executives including Aceto that they had “dodged some bullets” with regards to a Health Canada inspection.

“[Health Canada] did not ask about RG8E/W, which are unlicensed rooms currently full of plants,” Lee’s email said, according to the report.

Peter Aceto, the CEO, started his job at the company in October last year. The communication above happened in the very next month. Aceto used to work for Tangerine -- an online bank in Canada. Health Canada just might go after this former Bankster.

The shareholders must be livid. The stock price over the past few months.

27 March: $13.45

5 July: $6.46

Today: $2.58

That's an 81% crash in four months.

Update

That was quick. Peter Aceto is terminated:

The investigation into the Company's non-compliance with Health Canada regulations and ancillary matters uncovered new information that has resulted in a determination by the Board to terminate with cause CannTrust CEO Peter Aceto.

In addition, the Board of Directors demanded the resignation of the Company's Chair Eric Paul and he complied.

Feel the Bern!

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is quite the hypocrite. The 2016 Democratic presidential runner-up and 2020 contender has long championed increasing the minimum wage to $15 per hour, and chided companies like Disney and McDonald's for not paying their employees that much. Last week, news broke that Sanders' presidential campaign is not paying staffers a salary equivalent to $15 per hour. Field organizers said they make $36,000 per year working 60 hours per week, an average of $13 per hour.

What a comedy sketch! Bernie Sanders is not immune from the Iron Laws of Economics:

After Seattle raised its minimum wage, the University of Washington found that the minimum wage law reduced the number of hours worked by 9.6 percent. Thanks to shortened shifts and lost jobs, the average low-wage worker ended up taking home $125 less each month.

Similarly, Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir told Newsweek that the campaign is "limiting hours so not employee is receiving less than $15 for any hours worked." In other words, just like any other business, the campaign is trying to cut costs in order to compensate for high wage demands.

To be fair, he did pick the least destructive option. He could have fired a few people and maintained the total individual working hours for the rest.

Expensive real estate

Renting an apartment alone is a bad choice; better to share one:

New York, San Francisco and Washington D.C. are often spotlighted for their astronomical housing prices. But a new report finds that it’s not just the coasts that are facing an affordability crisis: A full-time worker earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour cannot rent an affordable two-bedroom apartment anywhere in the country, where affordable is defined as comprising up to 30% of a renter’s budget.

A year after I started working, I had two jobs. In total, I made around $900 a month. My monthly rent for one room in a three-bedroom apartment was $300. So, not affordable. That was twelve years ago. It's a lot worse today.

Oh Canada!

A pre-election survey conducted for CBC News suggests Canadians are divided on immigration, with clear limits on the kind of migration they find acceptable. [...]

More than three-quarters (76 per cent) of respondents to a survey by Public Square Research and Maru/Blue agreed that Canada should do more to encourage skilled labourers to immigrate to the country, while 57 per cent said Canada should not be accepting more refugees.

If Canadians had any sense, then they would completely stop immigration for at least a few decades and promote pro-family policies. Otherwise, there won't be a Canada in the near-future.

[...] the federal government is hoping to boost immigration numbers further. In targets laid out in last year's annual report to Parliament on immigration, the government calls for 330,800 admissions this year, a number that is set to increase to 350,000 in 2021.

"Immigration has been, and continues to be, good for Canada," said Ahmed Hussen, Canada's Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship. "We are an aging society. We have a growing economy that needs a lot of new workers."

A Somali in Canada wants more Somalis in Canada. Shocking!

One of the big problems in Canada is an anti-family economic structure: skyrocketing tuition, ever-increasing student loan debt, rising real estate prices, and the heavy burden of high taxes. Even if all future immigrants were educated, smart, and possessed angelic personalities, soon they would change their behavior given the horrible incentives in the country. In other words, they will proceed to have very few children ... which would lead the government to demand even more immigrants!

The other problem is that immigration ultimately destroys a country. Having 2-3% foreigners can be healthy for a society but things fall apart when the gates are opened to millions of people who ultimately want to import and inflict their shithole mentality on the natives.

Proud depravity

When you claim you are marginalised & oppressed but the entire global capitalist system is backing you... pic.twitter.com/LrgOLjs7GA

— Mark Collett (@MarkACollett) July 1, 2019

The commies didn't listen!

This portrays the Chinese-in-charge as not very smart:

China has increased the number of government-funded studies into the US and trade this year following criticism that gaps in the country’s understanding of America has left policymakers unprepared to deal with Donald Trump’s presidency and the subsequent trade war.

When Trump started the still-unresolved dispute last July, Chinese academics faced heavy criticism that they had underestimated the US president and his administration’s resolve to confront Beijing.

The following video was uploaded on April 29, 2011. Trump made his intentions regarding China very clear at least eight years ago! Nobody had to predict what Trump would do; one just had to watch and listen:

Gimme gimme gimme!

“63 percent of non-citizens are using a welfare program, and it grows to 70 percent for those here 10 years or more, confirming another concern that once immigrants tap into welfare, they don’t get off it.”
https://t.co/mnNi2wGxF9

— Stefan Molyneux (@StefanMolyneux) 26 June 2019

They get welfare and then work for cash. They pilfer money from Americans and then steal their jobs by working in the underground economy.

Ugly future

Questions that no one in media ever ask: If 90% of all immigrants coming into US make $8 to $14 an hour, pay little or no taxes: How is the national debt paid? Who pays it? Wealthy and corporate taxes are at an all-time low: How does the US fund massive social programs? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/iNN5M1vtzH

— Mortal Coil Muse (@mortalcoilmuse) 25 June 2019

The debt won't be repaid. Social Security (aka The Grand Ponzi Scheme) will come to an end, likely in the 2030s. The young, new "Americans" have neither the desire nor the money to pay for the retirements of old White people. Those who didn't prepare and save will suffer.

Appeal to greed and envy. Then, profit!

When you don't understand the difference between revenue & profit: https://t.co/kcrfsuIhQn

— Corey A. DeAngelis (@DeAngelisCorey) June 18, 2019

Sanders is using the revenue number because it's BIGGER! See, the evil rich swim in all that wealth. Surely, taking 5 10 25 50% of that is totally moral.

Pay the new predators

The solution, as always, is more government power.

Time to pay up!

The beast is hungry:

A proposed hike in Illinois’ annual registration fee for electric vehicles, from $17.50 to $1,000, is being called unfair by current EV owners, and a sales disincentive by manufacturers — just as the new technology is beginning to gain broader traction.

This is what happens after decades of out of control spending and debt accumulation: taxes go up! That, by the way, is a 5,614% increase in the registration fee.

No money for you!

A woman got tired of paying the stupid tax. So, she doubled down:

Quebec's Court of Appeal has ruled that a woman who claimed Loto-Quebec misled her on her chances of winning a jackpot cannot launch a class action against the provincial Crown corporation.

This was an easy case because:

[...] the odds were printed on the back of tickets [...]

You might as well set your money on fire.

The Rise of Canopy Growth

From a $3 share price to $66 in just five years.

5 years ago today, we sold our very first gram of dried flower. Since then, we've introduced all kinds of new products and formats, from softgels to seeds. Just wait until you see what we have coming next. Bring on the next 5! #FutureGrowth pic.twitter.com/Tl4xbp2lIs

— Canopy Growth (@CanopyGrowth) 5 May 2019

At the time, the market capitalization of this company was around CAD$50 million. Today, it's over $22 billion. That's 10 billion more than the second biggest cannabis company.

Debt and death

The fruits of the health care system in Canada:

A mother in Nova Scotia living with cancer is challenging Premier Stephen McNeil to meet with her after a years-long battle with the province's health-care system.

In an emotional video posted to her Facebook page this week, Inez Rudderham said she went undiagnosed for two years because she couldn't access a family doctor. By the time she was diagnosed, her anal cancer had progressed to its third stage.

This is what happens when you have "free" public health care and private facilities are largely illegal. The government is drowning in debt. Result? Insanely long wait times for access to a doctor. The only realistic option is to save money and visit another country for treatment. For example, tens of thousands of Canadians visit hospitals in the US every year. For all the flaws of the American system, at least, you can get prompt access to a doctor and immediate treatment if necessary.

The debt is already high and the government revenues are insufficient; something has to give:

City of Toronto officials are calling on the province to reverse public health funding cuts that they say could put residents' "health at risk," amid a growing battle between the city and the Ministry of Health over the true financial impact of the changes.

Last week, Premier Doug Ford's government notified health units that it will reduce cost-sharing from levels of 100 per cent or 75 per cent, to 60 to 70 per cent for some municipalities.

In Toronto's case, the cost-sharing for some programs drops to 50-50 by 2021.

Millennials and real estate

Debt, immigration and restricted housing supply is crushing the younger generation:

For the purposes of this study, Statistics Canada considered millennials to be between 25 and 34 years old in 2016. The agency then compared them with the same age group in 1999 (generation X) and young people in 1984 who are today's baby boomers.

The millennial cohort had a median after-tax household income of $44,093 in 2016, by Statistics Canada's calculations. That compares with $33,276 for gen-Xers and $33,350 for boomers at the same age. And those figures are inflation adjusted, which means it's an apples-to-apples comparison.

I was chatting with an older gentleman last month who was very surprised to find out that I don't own any real estate. He said that owning a house is one of the best financial decisions he made. I asked him, "How much did you pay for your house?"

"$54,000."

"Do you remember your annual income at that time?"

"Hmm, about $20,000."

"Did you have a mortgage?"

"No, I borrowed from family and paid them back in a few years."

Yeah. The average annual income today is roughly $40,000 but the average house price has skyrocketed to $600,000. If you want a nice neighborhood, then we're talking a million dollars in Ontario. That's a mountain of debt that no reasonable person would carry.

Alberta smokes

Alberta pot smokers are expected to spend about $940 million on legal weed by 2024, with the province becoming Canada's second-largest market for cannabis behind Ontario, according to a new forecast.

U.S.-based research firms BDS Analytics and Arcview Market Research said in a new report Albertans spent about $216 million on medical and retail cannabis last year. They will more than quadruple that spending in the next five years, the forecast predicts.

The news story ends with this blunder:

Edmonton-based Aurora Cannabis, which is worth more than $12 billion on the stock market, is the second-largest pot producer in Canada based on market capitalization, trailing only Canopy Growth Corp., which is valued at $14.6 billion.

Wrong. The market capitalization of Canopy Growth Corporation: $19.2 billion. It has been over $19 billion for over two months! Seriously, how does one even make an error like that?

Ah! Just a couple of seconds after publishing this post, it clicked. The reporter is comparing Aurora's market cap in Canadian dollars to Canopy's market cap in US dollars!

A Very Bad Idea

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has proposed a so-called mark-to-market version of the capital gains tax. Put more simply, investors would pay capital gains taxes each and every year in which their assets go up in value, instead of only when they are sold. [...]

The annual tax would also apply to illiquid investments like the value of a private company, real estate and other complex investments.

This will hurt low-income folks the most. Imagine, an old, retired couple today with a house which they bought for $100,000. In a roaring real estate market that house could be worth $200,000 next year. Should the couple get a $25,000 tax bill for that increased value even though they haven't sold the house?

Furthermore, the government will become even more insane and tight with their building permits -- maliciously spiking real estate prices to gobble a larger tax bite. The rich will survive it but the lower middle class will be devastated.

The Canadian Cannabis Goliath

The beginning of Canopy Growth Corporation:

In response to several key changes to the Marijuana for Medical Purposes Regulations (MMPR)—particularly the phasing-out of home cultivation and easier access through medical prescriptions—one company, in particular, saw cannabis’ burgeoning potential before anyone else. The founders of Tweed recognized the opportunity to become a substantial licensed commercial operator in the Canadian marketplace, and became among Canada’s earliest cannabis entrants.

Its ticker symbol was TWD five year ago. The share price fluctuated around $3 for a year and then crashed to $1.10 by the fall of 2015. The Liberal victory in the federal elections saved the company as the market for legal cannabis was likely to increase by an order of magnitude in Canada alone.

Today, its share price fluctuates in the high 50s. Canopy went from a market capitalization of roughly $50 million to $20 billion in five years. Now, what matters is execution as they must go from an annualized revenue of $333 million to $2 billion to justify their sky-high valuation. As America and Europe slowly but surely go towards legalization, it's possible that Canopy just might hit a $200 billion valuation by the end of the 2020s. That would imply a share price of approximately $360 then.

The myth of equality

Looking at JUST hours worked diff between men and women:

Man and Woman both paid $20/hr.

BLS stats say man will work 42 hours per week, woman will work 37 hours.

End of week EARNINGS:
Man: $840
Woman: $740

Equal pay for equal work =/= equal earnings

— Ashe Schow (@AsheSchow) 2 April 2019

On a related note: no wonder nobody watches women's basketball.

Happy #EqualPayDay pic.twitter.com/UvUqQZHJN7

— Jesse Kelly (@JesseKellyDC) 2 April 2019

I knew how that was going to end. Still, watching it made me laugh.

Crazy Croissant Conspiracy

As the price of labor increases, how will that impact the price of a croissant? https://t.co/dZLn0ZmOvo

— RAMZPAUL (@ramzpaul) 1 April 2019

I've heard so many people say that they support $15 or a $20 minimum wage for workers (especially those hard-working waiters). This loud support is followed by complaints about the ridiculous spikes in food prices at restaurants!? The idea that low-margin businesses need higher revenues to pay for increased costs is completely alien to them.

Constellation and Canopy

In August 2018, Constellation Brands said it would increase its ownership to about 38% and pour another $4 billion US into Canopy. The terms of the deal allow Constellation to take up to a 55% stake — something Sands thinks it will do, calling a still larger investment a "no brainer."

The hefty sum has already spooked investors.

In January, Constellation slashed its 2019 forecast because of additional expenses from the deal and expected weakness in its wine business. Shares of the company plummeted.

Constellation Brands is down 29% from its all-time high. This is strange considering that the US market just opened up for hemp products this year. Anyway, let's see what they do with the US$4 billion in the upcoming months. Given Canopy's mediocre marijuana harvest in the last quarter, I wouldn't be surprised if they acquire a Canadian cannabis firm. Organigram, CannTrust and Aphria are the best targets.

"The only way to solve the crisis ..."

A small, bare-bones apartment near Cabbagetown that garnered gasps over social media on Thursday may pass as an acceptable rental unit under government regulations, and tenant advocates are concerned that it signals a worsening state of affordable housing.

The glorified closet is renting for $1,100 per month.

Federation of Metro Tenants' Associations executive director, Geordie Dent, called it a "ridiculous condition to live in" that fills him with a sense of "crushing sadness."

[...] Dent said he's seeing "more and more" apartments such as this, as Toronto faces a brutal housing shortage.

The only way to solve the crisis, he said, is with government-funded affordable housing.

What's strange is that we don't have shortages of cars, clothes, refrigerators, microwaves, faucets, phones, etc. Why? Is it because those items are "government-funded"? The province of Ontario has more area than France and Germany combined. Yet, by some miracle, those two countries together have ten times the population!

So, what's the problem? Not enough supply and too much demand.

• The governments stand in the way of housing development. This limits the supply. Prices of houses and condos have skyrocketed. Rent is now becoming difficult for many.
• The government imports hundreds of thousands of immigrants every year. The diversity wants to live in the GTS (Greater Toronto Shithole). This, obviously, results in higher prices.

Conclusion: Let's get the government involved! That way average folks can grovel in front of the political elite for the chance to live in an affordable place.

Seriously, build more houses and severely restrict immigration. This isn't rocket science.

Meme of the Year

Dumber and dead:

Near-monopoly power

How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former industry execs tell all.

I have often seen eyeglasses that retail for over $500 in Canada. Go online and you'll find similar eyeglasses for under $100. The margins for physical retailers are just insane.

Higher wages, lower work hours

Whole Foods is cutting work hours:

Workers at Whole Foods (which Amazon bought in 2017) told the Guardian that after Amazon enacted a $15 minimum wage last fall, they’ve seen their shifts cut dramatically. One employee in Illinois said they dropped from 30 hours a week to 20; their take-home pay actually declined after the hourly raise. These shift reductions have affected workers across the board, particularly part-time workers, who saw their hours reduced from 30 to 21 per week on average.

[...] This cost cutting on the part of Amazon and Whole Foods has reportedly resulted in understaffing issues at stores. Employees in California told the Guardian that there are not enough people to work the cash registers to prevent long lines, and fewer staff are available to help customers on the floor.

These workers who merely lost a few hours are the lucky ones. There are businesses, especially restaurants, that completely shut the door. The work hours of those employees are reduced to zero.

Thermonuclear goodness!

Wisconsin plans to give ID cards and driver's licenses to illegal aliens. Why? Because it's good for the economy! Vox Day writes:

Well, if it strengthens the economy, then it must be good. Pursuant to which I note that the Japanese economy exploded upward after it invaded Manchuria.

That's nothing. The really amazing growth came after Little Boy and Fat Man were detonated over Japanese cities.

The solution is simple: Nuke Wisconsin for an explosive economy!

The economics of power

Why Renewables Can’t Save the Planet:

You can make solar panels cheaper and wind turbines bigger, but you can’t make the sun shine more regularly or the wind blow more reliably. I came to understand the environmental implications of the physics of energy. In order to produce significant amounts of electricity from weak energy flows, you just have to spread them over enormous areas. In other words, the trouble with renewables isn’t fundamentally technical—it’s natural.

Dealing with energy sources that are inherently unreliable, and require large amounts of land, comes at a high economic cost.

Tesla fans wept.

The reason nuclear is the best energy from an environmental perspective is because it produces so little waste and none enters the environment as pollution. All of the waste fuel from 45 years of the Swiss nuclear program can fit, in canisters, on a basketball court-like warehouse, where like all spent nuclear fuel, it has never hurt a fly.

Miserable Millennials

Millennials are now truly understanding the pain of increasing interest rates. The mortgage payments go up!

Nearly half of all homeowners have buyer’s remorse, according to a new survey from Bankrate. While 44% of all homeowners have regrets, that number swells to 63% for millennial homeowners. It’s the highest proportion of any generation, and nearly double that of baby boomers – 35% of those aged 55-73 regret buying a home.

I was doing a house search online a few years ago. I narrowed the search to two houses that were roughly the same size but about one kilometer apart. The house which was closer to grocery stores and bus stops was twice as expensive. That is a staggering premium in a time when average wages are stagnant.

Homeowners also say that bad location, high mortgage payments, and buying the wrong size home can cause them to think differently about their purchase.

Millennials should think differently before they make the biggest purchase decision of their life. Renting for a few years can definitely be a sensible option.

Can't trust CNN

Just in the first few seconds, the CNN host says that CannTrust is the third Canadian marijuana company to list on the NYSE. False!

The Big Three from Canada listed on the NYSE in the last calendar year.

1. Canopy Growth Corp. (NYSE: CGC)
2. Aurora Cannabis (NYSE: ACB)
3. Aphria (NYSE: APHA)

Seriously, how hard is it to get this basic stuff right?

The mythical gender pay gap

Just listen to what this woman says between 4:24 and 4:44. These women will just make up surreal shit to keep the lie going.

Misery repeats itself

Everyone Who's Never Read A History Book Shocked As Socialist Turns Into Authoritarian At First Whiff Of Powerhttps://t.co/C3mNhcgEhe pic.twitter.com/aLNIUWVifw

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) 26 February 2019

Sick Swedes

Strandhäll wrote that Prime Minister Viktor Orban's demand for "more genuine Hungarian children" was offensive, "reeked of the 1930s" and effectively offset the benefits of feminism.

"What is happening in Hungary is alarming. Now Orban wants more 'genuine' Hungarian children to be born. The policy reeks of the 30s. A right-wing populist you need smokescreens for what this type of policy does to the independence women have been struggling for", Strandhäll tweeted.

White women taking care of their beautiful children = LITERALLY HITLER!

White women wasting away for a faceless, uncaring corporation = INDEPENDENCE!

This is how women react after the education complex and the media have pumped poison into their minds for decades. SLAVERY is FREEDOM!

Oh, it gets worse:

Viktor Orban's call for "Hungarian children" didn't resonate well with the Swedish press, either. Sydsvenskan's columnist Sofia Nerbrand wrote that Orban "should be ashamed" of steps to stimulate childbirth in Hungary.

"Viktor Orban's stated goal is that the Hungarian people will increase with the help of white Hungarian offsprings, not migrants," Nerbrand wrote, calling this approach 'unsavoury'. "Rhetoric and politics that put one's own people first and shut out the others should have no place in today's Europe."

These wicked elites truly are insane and anti-White.