Business
The big quiet bail out – Euro/Japan central banks propping up stock markets, is the US next?

You’d think that the golden age of markets, if there was one, would be something like the post WWII economic expansion era. That was pretty impressive, driven by baby boomers and the gigantic wave of consumption that enveloped them. Never before in history had parents worried so much about the outfits that New Baby would wear, and it only got crazier from there.
Fundamentally though, the late 1700s were far more earth-shaking. Not in the consumerist sense; those austere horse-travelers managed to survive somehow without the likes of either Apple or Lululemon, for example, but consider the free-market achievements of that period. The United States came into existence, a profound new experiment in governance and free(ish) markets. In academic circles, famed economist/philosopher Adam Smith coined the term “the invisible hand of the market” in his book The Wealth of Nations. It was a reference to the ability of a market economy to provide benefits far beyond those that accrue to the creator. That is, an inventor of something that becomes wildly successful enriches not only the inventor, but society as a whole. Plus, it is an indirect reference to the ability of markets to efficiently allocate capital.
We tend to forget that wonder of capital markets, particularly as the world drifts into one defined more and more by government intervention. Since the 2008 financial meltdown, governments have gone kind of berserk in attempting to keep the financial world afloat, causing markets to gyrate in increasing spirals through wild-eyed policy guidance as the dollars at stake become stupefyingly large. We no longer have economist/philosophers at the helm; we have economist/desperados who have convinced the world their alchemic ways will work, and they don’t know that it will, but they’re really really hoping.
The new breed of economist has introduced an all new Invisible Market Hand – not one that provides infinite benevolence, but one that is like a forklift driver feeling confident in his/her ability to pilot a fighter jet because the seats are similar.
The strategy of which I speak began in Japan over the past decade. After years of trying to kick start the Japanese economy in various ways, including dropping interest rates to zero, the central bank began buying up treasuries as a means of supporting debt markets. When that didn’t get things going, they took the next step and actually began buying up equities to prop up stock markets. Since then, Europe has started a similar program. And yes, you heard that right – in those jurisdictions, if stock prices fall too much, the market is prevented from self-correcting, and governments are, in effect, breaking the fingers of the original Invisible Hand.
They appear to be stepping in to keep critical sectors of the economy in good shape, and also to enhance the “wealth effect”. The wealth effect refers to how citizens tend to spend more drunkenly when they feel wealthy, and for many that means a healthy portfolio. If someone sees their retirement nest egg shrink from $100,000 to $50,000 in a severe market downturn, those people tend to lockdown spending – a wise reaction. But as we’re seeing, the world keeps turning because we are consumers, and like it or not, consumption makes our world go round. So by making those portfolios stay healthy one way or another, governments seek to put the population in a semi-drunken spending stupor in order to keep the party going. Anyone who’s witnesses a true boom economy will recognize the phenomenon – at the peak of the oil boom 6 or 8 years ago, there were direct flights from Fort McMurray to Las Vegas, and thousands of twenty-somethings were purchasing vacation properties. Suffice it to say that those days are gone.
Don’t expect the new Invisible Market Hand to bail you out if your brother-in-law convinces you to load up some hot stock tip he got from a friend who got it from a friend who got it from a friend, because the “friend” at the end of that chain will be some dubious stock promoter that may or may not end up in jail, and even panicked governments won’t save those souls.
With the new strategies for propping up markets however, we’re starting to see the lengths governments will go to in order to maintain financial stability. You’d think the mountains of debt will lead to a day of reckoning, but, emboldened by the global government response to the 2008 financial crisis, the high priests of finance are becoming more emboldened. That our fate depends so heavily on a squadron of tweedy economists is truly frightening, but we’re all in the same boat, so enjoy the ride…
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Carbon Tax
The book the carbon taxers don’t want you to read

By Franco Terrazzano
Prime Minister Mark Carney wrote a 500-page book praising carbon taxes.
Well, I just wrote a book smashing through the government’s carbon tax propaganda.
It tells the inside story of the fight against the carbon tax. And it’s THE book the carbon taxers don’t want you to read.
My book is called Axing the Tax: The Rise and Fall of Canada’s Carbon Tax.
Axing the Tax: The Rise and Fall of Canada’s Carbon Tax
Every now and then, the underdog wins one.
And it looks like that’s happening in the fight against the carbon tax.
It’s not over yet, but support for the carbon tax is crumbling. Some politicians vow to scrap it. Others hide behind vague plans to repackage it. But virtually everyone recognizes support for the current carbon tax has collapsed.
It wasn’t always this way.
For about a decade now, powerful politicians, government bureaucrats, academics, media elites and even big business have been pushing carbon taxes on the people.
But most of the time, politicians never asked the people if they supported carbon taxes. In other words, carbon taxes, and the resulting higher gas prices and heating bills, were forced on us.
We were told it was good for us. We were told carbon taxes were inevitable. We were told politicians couldn’t win elections without carbon taxes, even though the politicians that imposed them didn’t openly run on them. We were told that we needed to pay carbon taxes if we wanted to leave a healthy environment for our kids and grandkids. We were told we needed to pay carbon taxes if we wanted to be respected in the international community.
In this decade-long fight, it would have been understandable if the people had given up and given in to these claims. It would have been easier to accept what the elites wanted and just pay the damn bill. But against all odds, ordinary Canadians didn’t give up.
Canadians knew you could care about the environment and oppose carbon taxes. Canadians saw what they were paying at the gas station and on their heating bills, and they knew they were worse off, regardless of how many politicians, bureaucrats, journalists and academics tried to convince them otherwise. Canadians didn’t need advanced degrees in economics, climate science or politics to understand they were being sold a false bill of goods.
Making it more expensive for a mom in Port Hope to get to work, or grandparents in Toronto to pay their heating bill, or a student in Coquitlam to afford food won’t reduce emissions in China, Russia, India or the United States. It just leaves these Canadians, and many like them, with less money to afford everything else.
Ordinary Canadians understood carbon taxes amount to little more than a way for governments to take more money from us and dictate how we should live our lives. Ordinary Canadians also saw through the unfairness of the carbon tax.
Many of the elites pushing the carbon tax—the media, politicians, taxpayer-funded professors, laptop activists and corporate lobbyists—were well off and wouldn’t feel the brunt of carbon taxes. After all, living in a downtown condo and clamouring for higher carbon taxes doesn’t require much gas, diesel or propane.
But running a business, working in a shop, getting kids to soccer and growing food on the farm does. These are the Canadians the political class forgot about when pushing carbon taxes. These are the Canadians who never gave up. These are the Canadians who took time out of their busy lives to sign petitions, organize and attend rallies, share posts on social media, email politicians and hand out bumper stickers.
Because of these Canadians, the carbon tax could soon be swept onto the ash heap of history. I wrote this book for two reasons.
The first is because these ordinary Canadians deserve it. They worked really hard for a really long time against the odds. When all the power brokers in government told them, “Do what we say—or pay,” they didn’t give up. They deserve to know the time and effort they spent fighting the carbon tax mattered. They deserve all the credit.
Thank you for everything you did.
The second reason I wrote this book is so people know the real story of the carbon tax. The carbon tax was bad from the start and we fought it from the start. By reading this book, you will get the real story about the carbon tax, a story you won’t find anywhere else.
This book is important because if the federal Liberals’ carbon tax is killed, the carbon taxers will try to lay blame for their defeat on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. They will try to say that carbon taxes are a good idea, but Trudeau bungled the policy or wasn’t a good enough salesman. They will try to revive the carbon tax and once again make you pay more for gas, groceries, and home heating.
Just like with any failed five-year plan, there is a lingering whiff among the laptop class and the taxpayer-funded desk rulers that this was all a communication problem, that the ideal carbon tax hasn’t been tried yet. I can smell it outside my office building in Ottawa, where I write these words. We can’t let those embers smoulder and start a fire again.
This book shows why the carbon tax is and always will be bad policy for ordinary Canadians.
Franco’s note: You can pre-order a copy of my new book, Axing the Tax: The Rise and Fall of Canada’s Carbon Tax, here: https://www.amazon.ca/Axing-
2025 Federal Election
Poilievre To Create ‘Canada First’ National Energy Corridor

From Conservative Party Communications
Poilievre will create the ‘Canada First’ National Energy Corridor to rapidly approve & build the infrastructure we need to end our energy dependence on America so we can stand up to Trump from a position of strength.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre announced today he will create a ‘Canada First’ National Energy Corridor to fast-track approvals for transmission lines, railways, pipelines, and other critical infrastructure across Canada in a pre-approved transport corridor entirely within Canada, transporting our resources within Canada and to the world while bypassing the United States. It will bring billions of dollars of new investment into Canada’s economy, create powerful paycheques for Canadian workers, and restore our economic independence.
“After the Lost Liberal decade, Canada is poorer, weaker, and more dependent on the United States than ever before,” said Poilievre. “My ‘Canada First National Energy Corridor’ will enable us to quickly build the infrastructure we need to strengthen our country so we can stand on our own two feet and stand up to the Americans.”
In the corridor, all levels of government will provide legally binding commitments to approve projects. This means investors will no longer face the endless regulatory limbo that has made Canadians poorer. First Nations will be involved from the outset, ensuring that economic benefits flow directly to them and that their approval is secured before any money is spent.
Between 2015 and 2020, Canada cancelled 16 major energy projects, resulting in a $176 billion hit to our economy. The Liberals killed the Energy East pipeline and passed Bill C-69, the “No-New-Pipelines” law, which makes it all but impossible to build the pipelines and energy infrastructure we need to strengthen the Canadian economy. And now, the PBO projects that the ‘Carney cap’ on Canadian energy will reduce oil and gas production by nearly 5%, slash GDP by $20.5 billion annually, and eliminate 54,400 full-time jobs by 2032. An average mine opening lead time is now nearly 18 years—23% longer than Australia and 38% longer than the US. As a result of the Lost Liberal Decade, Canada now ranks 23rd in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index for 2024, a seven-place drop since 2015.
“In 2024, Canada exported 98% of its crude oil to the United States. This leaves us too dependent on the Americans,” said Poilievre. “Our Canada First National Energy Corridor will get us out from under America’s thumb and enable us to build the infrastructure we need to sell our natural resources to new markets, bring home jobs and dollars, and make us sovereign and self-reliant to stand up to Trump from a position of strength.”
Mark Carney’s economic advice to Justin Trudeau made Canada weaker while he and his rich friends made out like bandits. While he advised Trudeau to cancel Canadian energy projects, his own company spent billions on pipelines in South America and the Middle East. And unlike our competitors Australia and America, which work with builders to get projects approved, Mark Carney and Steven Guilbeault’s radical “keep-it-in-the-ground” ideology has blocked development, killed jobs, and left Canada dependent on foreign imports.
“The choice is clear: a fourth Liberal term that will keep our resources in the ground and keep us weak and vulnerable to Trump’s threats, or a strong new Conservative government that will approve projects, build an economic fortress, bring jobs and dollars home, and put Canada First—For a Change.”
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