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Princess Eugenie weds her beau at Windsor Castle
WINDSOR, England — Britain’s Princess Eugenie married tequila brand ambassador Jack Brooksbank in a star-studded royal wedding Friday at St. George’s Chapel on the grounds of Windsor Castle.
It was the second wedding extravaganza of the year for the royal family, which seems to be riding a wave of popularity as the younger generation comes to the fore and the widely-respected Queen Elizabeth II cuts back slightly on her public appearances.
The 28-year-old bride, the queen’s granddaughter, is ninth in line to the British throne. She wore a long-sleeved gown with a fitted top, a peplum and a long train by British-based designers Peter Pilotto and Christopher De Vos and a diamond-and-emerald tiara loaned to her by the queen.
The 92-year-old queen and her husband, Prince Philip, attended the wedding, along with other senior royals, including Prince Charles; Prince William and his wife Kate, the duchess of Cambridge; and Prince Harry with Meghan, the duchess of Sussex.
There had been doubts about whether the 97-year-old Philip would be well enough to attend, but he seemed to be in good form during a rare public appearance. Prince Charles’ wife, Camilla, missed the wedding because of other commitments.
Eugenie’s sister, Princess Beatrice, served as maid of
They are the daughters of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, who are divorced but enjoy an amicable relationship.
The A-list guests included Hollywood stars Demi Moore and Liv Tyler, fashion luminaries Kate Moss, Cara Delevingne and Naomi Campbell and pop singer Robbie Williams, whose daughter was a bridesmaid.
Eugenie’s dress was cut in a deep V in the front and the back, a feature requested by the bride that revealed a vertical scar from her surgery at age 12 to correct scoliosis. She has said previously it’s important for people to show their scars.
Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, wore a fuchsia dress by Alexander McQueen and a hat by Philip Treacy — Britain’s premier milliner. Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, wore a navy dress and coat by Givenchy.
There were occasional blue skies on a generally cloudy, gusty day as the royal standard flew atop the Windsor Castle complex, indicating the queen was in residence. The strong winds forced many women to hold on to their elaborate hats as they approached the chapel.
Eugenie works at a contemporary art gallery. The couple, who had dated for seven years, got engaged in January when Brooksbank, 32, proposed during a trip to Nicaragua. They married in the same venue used in May by Harry and Meghan.
William and Kate’s 5-year-old son, Prince George, served as a page boy, and their daughter, 3-year-old Princess Charlotte, was one of six bridesmaids. There was no sign of 5-month-old Prince Louis, William and Kate’s youngest child.
The bride’s parents left the chapel together smiling as the newlyweds embarked on a horse-drawn carriage ride through parts of Windsor.
The queen hosted a champagne luncheon for the guests just after the ceremony, with a second reception planned for the evening.
Before the event, Eugenie told ITV, which broadcast the hour-long service in Britain, that she was both excited and a bit on edge.
“It’s nerve-wracking and a bit scary and all the things that come with getting married, but at the end of the day you get to marry the person you love,” she said.
The couple invited 1,200 members of the public to come onto the castle grounds for a closer glimpse of proceedings. There were also crowds of well-wishers on the streets outside the imposing castle, the site of Harry’s marriage to Meghan Markle in May.
“I’m a royal superfan, so when her majesty organizes a big event for her granddaughter, I can’t stay at home,” said Joseph Afrane, 54. “Whether it’s rain or sunshine, I have to come down and support her majesty.”
___
Katz reported from London.
Gregory Katz And Martin Benedyk, The Associated Press
Uncategorized
Trump Needs To Take Away What Politicians Love Most — Pork
Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman in an interview on CSPAN, Sept. 30, 2000
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Stephen Moore
Shortly before his death in 2006, I had the privilege of interviewing Milton Friedman over dinner in San Francisco. The last question I asked him was: What are the three things we had to do to make America more prosperous?
His answer I have never forgotten: “First, allow universal school choice; second, expand free trade; third and most importantly, cut government spending.” That was long before Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden came along.
There are not too many problems in America that cannot be traced back to the growth of big and incompetent government.
It is notable that the two big bursts of inflation during modern times both occurred when government spending exploded. The first was the gigantic expansion of the LBJ “war on poverty” welfare state in the 1970s with prices nearly doubling, and then the post-COVID era spending blitz in the last year of Trump and then the Biden $6 trillion spending spree with the CPI sprinting from 1.5% to 9.1%.
Coincidence? Maybe. But I doubt it.
The connection between government flab and the decline in the purchasing power of the dollar is obvious. In both cases the Washington spending blitz was funded by Federal Reserve money printing. The helicopter money caused prices to surge. (I still find it laughable that 11 Nobel prize-winning economists wrote in the New York Times in 2021: Don’t worry, the Biden multi-trillion-dollar spending spree won’t cause inflation.)
The avalanche of federal spending hasn’t stopped even though COVID ended more than three years ago. We are three months into the 2025 fiscal year and on pace to spend an all-time high $7 trillion and borrow $2 trillion. If we stay on this course, the federal budget could reach $10 trillion over the next decade.
This road to financial perdition cannot stand. It risks blowing up the Trump presidency.
Upon entering office, Trump should on day one call for a package of up to $500 billion of rescissions — money that the last Congress appropriated but has not been spent yet. Cancelling the green energy subsidies alone could save nearly $100 billion. Why are we still spending money on COVID?
We could save tens of billions by ending corporate welfare programs — such as the wheel barrels full of tax dollars thrown at companies like Intel in the CHIPS Act. The Elon Musk Department of Government Efficiency is already identifying low hanging fruit that needs to be cut from the tree.
Along with extending the Trump tax cut of 2017, this erasure of bloated federal spending is critical for economic revival and for reversing the income losses to the middle class under Biden.
This is especially urgent because the curse of inflation is NOT over. Since the Fed started cutting interest rates in October, commodity prices are up nearly 5% and the mortgage rates have again hit 7% — in part because the combination of cheap money and government expansion is a toxic economic brew — as history teaches us.
Nothing could suck the oxygen and excitement out of the new Trump presidency more than a resumption of inflation at the grocery store and the gas pump. Trump’s record-high approval rating will sink overnight if the cost of everything starts rising again.
Cutting spending won’t be easy. The resistance won’t just come from Bernie Sanders Democrats. Trump will have to convince lawmakers in his own party — many of whom are already defending green-new-deal pork projects in their districts.
This is why Trump should make the case in his inaugural address that downsizing government is the moral equivalent of war. Borrow a line from Nancy Reagan: just say no — to runaway government spending. Say yes to what Friedman titled his famous book: “Capitalism and Freedom.”
Stephen Moore is a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation. His new book, coauthored with Arthur Laffer, is “The Trump Economic Miracle.”
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What is ‘productivity’ and how can we improve it
From the Fraser Institute
Earlier this year, a senior Bank of Canada official caused a stir by describing Canada’s pattern of declining productivity as an “emergency,” confirming that the issue of productivity is now in the spotlight. That’s encouraging. Boosting productivity is the only way to improve living standards, particularly in the long term. Today, Canada ranks 18th globally on the most common measure of productivity, with our position dropping steadily over the last several years.
Productivity is the amount of gross domestic product (GDP) or “output” the economy produces using a given quantity and mix of “inputs.” Labour is a key input in the production process, and most discussions of productivity focus on labour productivity. Productivity can be estimated for the entire economy or for individual industries.
In 2023, labour productivity in Canada was $63.60 per hour (in 2017 dollars). Industries with above average productivity include mining, oil and gas, pipelines, utilities, most parts of manufacturing, and telecommunications. Those with comparatively low productivity levels include accommodation and food services, construction, retail trade, personal and household services, and much of the government sector. Due to the lack of market-determined prices, it’s difficult to gauge productivity in the government and non-profit sectors. Instead, analysts often estimate productivity in these parts of the economy by valuing the inputs they use, of which labour is the most important one.
Within the private sector, there’s a positive linkage between productivity and employee wages and benefits. The most productive industries (on average) pay their workers more. As noted in a February 2024 RBC Economics report, productivity growth is “essentially the only way that business profits and worker wages can sustainably rise at the same time.”
Since the early 2000s, Canada has been losing ground vis-à-vis the United States and other advanced economies on productivity. By 2022, our labour productivity stood at just 70 per cent of the U.S. benchmark. What does this mean for Canadians?
Chronically lagging productivity acts as a drag on the growth of inflation-adjusted wages and incomes. According to a recent study, after adjusting for differences in the purchasing power of a dollar of income in the two countries, GDP per person (an indicator of incomes and living standards) in Canada was only 72 per cent of the U.S. level in 2022, down from 80 per cent a decade earlier. Our performance has continued to deteriorate since 2022. Mainly because of the widening cross-border productivity gap, GDP per person in the U.S. is now $22,000 higher than in Canada.
Addressing Canada’s “productivity crisis” should be a top priority for policymakers and business leaders. While there’s no short-term fix, the following steps can help to put the country on a better productivity growth path.
- Increase business investment in productive assets and activities. Canada scores poorly compared to peer economies in investment in machinery, equipment, advanced technology products and intellectual property. We also must invest more in trade-enabling infrastructure such as ports, highways and other transportation assets that link Canada with global markets and facilitate the movement of goods and services within the country.
- Overhaul federal and provincial tax policies to strengthen incentives for capital formation, innovation, entrepreneurship and business growth.
- Streamline and reduce the cost and complexity of government regulation affecting all sectors of the economy.
- Foster greater competition in local markets and scale back government monopolies and government-sanctioned oligopolies.
- Eliminate interprovincial barriers to trade, investment and labour mobility to bolster Canada’s common market.
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