Last Week Today Episode 148 Show Notes for Monday, April 29th, 2024
The Political Consensus on the Current Budget, Another Bank Bites the Dust, Insurance Companies Face Rising Financial Pressure & Doug Ford Government Expropriates Small Farms for Big Business
The Political Consensus on the Current Budget
The April 23rd, 2024 Last Week Today post, “Requiem for Canada’s Latest Budget & its "Non-Fiscal" Components,” which talked about how bad the latest Federal budget was, is a viewpoint seemingly shared by others in both the legacy and new media.
For example, the April 23rd, 2024 The Opposition News Network post, “Nanos Poll Reveals Liberal Slide Continues Post-Budget,” suggested that most of the rest of the Canadian population pretty much agreed with Freedom Forum’s assessment of both the 2024 Federal budget and the overall downward slide of the Canadian economy.
The legacy also chimed in their agreement with pieces like the April 23rd, 2024 Global News post, “Budget 2024 failed to spark ‘political reboot’ for Liberals, polling suggests,” the April 17th, 2024 Globe and Mail post, “A government with no priorities, no anchors, and when it comes to growth, no clue,” and the April 16th, 2024 Postmedia News editorial, “Trudeau’s budget is a debt bomb.”
Only the CBC is downplaying the collapse of support for the Trudeau Liberals with noncommittal headlines focused on opposition parties, such as the April 22nd, 2024 CBC News post, “Singh says NDP still hasn't decided whether to support Liberals' new budget,” and the April 24th, 2024 CBC News post, “Poilievre visits convoy camp, claims Trudeau is lying about 'everything'” attempting to take the heat off an incumbent prime minister committed to increased and ongoing CBC funding.
Even the business press is expressing concern over the 2024 budget.
Business focused stories like the April 29th, 2024 Canadian Underwriter post, “Op-Ed: Federal budget 2024 misses the mark on water-related investments,” the April 17th, 2024 Denton Law post, “Canada Federal Budget 2024,” and the April 16th, 2024 Canadian Chamber of Commerce post, “2024 Federal Budget – Our Policy Experts’ Insights,” go into quite a bit of detail on both the perceived Federal budget benefits (however few they may be) and the budget’s larger perceived failures.
After all, business stories need to be “actionable” and provide insight into future actions. The business community needs to figure out how to pay the new taxes outlined in the budget and figure out how the budget will effect their business.
Of most concern to Canadian’s overall are the increasing calls from the investment community to leave Canada and relocate to more favorable and more stable jurisdictions.
The subtext is that, while Canada was once a great place to live and grow a business, it isn’t any longer.
An example of this perspective is the March 31st, 2024 Market Mania post, “The Standard of Living Collapse In Canada Is Accelerating. Here Is Why!”
Also in the News this Week
Another Bank Bites the Dust
As outlined in the April 26th, 2024 Associated Press post, “Regulators close Philadelphia-based Republic First Bank, first US bank failure this year,” the Republic First Bank, operated regionally in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York before being shut down by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) last week.
The larger Fulton Bank, based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, has agreed to assume responsibility over the failed bank's deposits and buy its assets, the agency said.
Republic Bank branches, closed since the FDIC shutdown, are expected to reopen as Fulton Bank branches “as early as Saturday,” at least according to the story, and account holders should be able to regain access to their bank accounts at about the same time.
As outlined in the April 29th, 2024 Activist Post story, “Another Bank Bites The Dust – So Who Will Be The Next Dominoes To Fall?,” more banks are on the chopping blocks, part of an upcoming wave of consolidation expected over the next year.
One of the primary reasons why so many banks are on the brink of disaster “is because we are facing a commercial real estate collapse of historic proportions.”
All across the US and Canada, commercial real estate property values have fallen dramatically, even as small and mid-size banks sit on mountains of commercial real estate loans worth far more than the mortgages on the properties.
For example and as outlined in the April 28th, 2024 Daily Mail post, “America's forgotten 'doom loop' city, where $205m skyscrapers are selling for under $4m and the decaying downtown has become a ghost town,” the tallest office building in St. Louis recently sold for 98 percent less than what it sold for in 2006.
This is a side effect of the great pandemic of 2020 – 2022, when everyone started working from home. They want to continue to do so. But without the cash-flow and valuations to support the banks, the system, and more banks will soon fail.
Collapse, or a major depression, is coming as the effects of the required commercial real estate write downs percolate through the financial and political systems.
For a second perspective on the issue, check out the April 29th, 2024 Free Investing on YouTube post, “Chamath Palihapitiya Explains Why We're Entering A Horrific Financial Crisis...”
Insurance Companies Face Rising Financial Pressure
America’s largest and, for some owners, only option for a home insurance policy is pulling back its operations in the state of California, leaving many with no more options to secure their property’s value amid wildfire danger in the state reaching new heights.
As outlined in the April 23rd, 2024 Statista post, “California Homeowners: Insured No More Amid Fire Danger,” State Farm Insurance indicated in March that 72,000 State Farm policies in the state would not be renewed.
According to the post, most other insurance companies had already dropped out of the market in those areas, deeming the locations uninsurable due to the danger of wildfires “fanned by climate change.”
According to the post:
State Farm's move speaks volumes to homes in wooded areas of California now being considered so likely to be destroyed that the usual calculations of insurance companies have stopped working out—at least for those high-end properties that are now having their contracts discontinued.
That’s probably not the only concern insurance companies need to deal with.
There’s also, as outlined in the January 7th, 2022 The Hill post, “‘Huge, huge numbers:’ insurance group sees death rates up 40 percent over pre-pandemic levels,” the ongoing rise in deaths of insurance company policyholders who’ve died suddenly since 2020.
More recently, there’s the April 28th, 2024 ThisisJohnWilliams on YouTube post, “Tornados NOW Ripping Across America | Insurance Companies Intend to RUGPULL Everyone!” which suggests that insurance companies are pulling back coverage in a great many areas to cover current and expected future looses.
The WHO Pandemic Treaty is Failing
The World Health Organization (WHO) pandemic treaty is about to fail, at least according to the April 23rd, 2024 James Roguski Substack post, “Evil Negotiating Tactics.”
According to the post, the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body in charge of crafting the WHO treaty has clearly failed to get the 194 member nations to reach an agreement regarding the details of the negotiations.
They are instead attempting to pressure the WHO member nations to adopt an incomplete agreement during the upcoming 77th World Health Assembly on May 28th, 2024).
If nations do NOT obediently and immediately sign the unfinished document, then they will not be able to continue to participate in the subsequent negotiations to work out the details. Roguski even has a video to explain the details.
For a different perspective on the progress of the WHO pandemic treaty, check out the April 29th, 2024 GBNews on YouTube post, “WHO sparks FURY with 'EGREGIOUS overreaches' with new PANDEMIC TREATY: 'They're corruptly funded!'“
Doug Ford Government Expropriates Small Farms for Big Business
The Canadian Independent is noting that the provincial Ontario government, led by Ontario Premier Doug Ford, has begun the expropriation of local, rural properties for undisclosed “industrial” uses.
The April 24th, 2024 Canadian Independent post, “WATCH: Ontario Premier Doug Ford is asking municipalities and regions across the province to seize farmland for industrial investors that don’t exist,” noted an April 11, 2024, press conference in Cambridge, Ontario, attended by the Ontario Premier, where Ford said he has asked regions and municipalities across the province to assemble land for industrial investment purposes.
Ford stated during press conference that there was no specific potential occupier or buyer of the property.
But parcels of land, including farmland in Wilmot Township, just outside of Kitchener, Ontario and parcels of land in Mountainoak Cheese, and in other areas, were being expropriated by local authorities in preparation for future offers.
And some of the techniques being use to expropriate the properties, seemed less that fair to the farmers loosing their land.
Only a few days later, a large international automobile manufacture signed a multi-billion dollar deal to relocate automotive factories to Ontario.
As outlined in the April 28th, 2024 CBC News post, “Ontario gave Honda $2.5B in tax incentives to secure EV deal. Is it worth it?,” the Ford government announced, that one of Ontario’s manufacturing packages has been accepted by Tokyo based automaker Honda Global in a massive deal.
The announcement was released only a few days after the Canadian Independent story broke and more deals are expected, although not everyone is in favor of the offers.
As outlined in the April 16th, 2024 National post article, Opinion: Taxpayers are the big loser in Honda plant deal,” Government handouts to corporations “do not pave the path to economic success in Canada.”
That article notes that:
This is the third such deal in Ontario, following similar corporate welfare handouts to Volkswagen ($13 billion) and Stellantis ($15 billion). Like the previous two deals, the Honda deal comes at a significant cost to taxpayers and will almost certainly fail to create widespread economic benefits for Ontarians.
The article also referenced a recent 202 Fraser Institute study on “The Cost of Business Subsidies in Canada,” and noted that:
…corporate welfare actually hinders economic growth, which Ontario and Canada desperately need, and often fails to produce jobs that would not otherwise have been created, while also requiring financial support from taxpayers.
It’s only a matter of time before other automakers ask for similar handouts from the Ontario and federal governments. Indeed, after Volkswagen secured billions in federal subsidies, Stellantis stopped construction of its EV battery plant in Windsor, Ont., until it received similar subsidies from the Trudeau government. Call it copycat corporate welfare.
In essence the Ford government is actively expropriating small rural properties and driving Ontario farmers out of business in order to present the properties to large corporations as incentives to relocate to Ontario.
The Ford government wins, the large manufacturing firms benefit. The only people loosing out are Ontario taxpayers and small, independent Ontario farmers, the bedrock of the Canadian economy since 1867.
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Federal, State Officials Aiding Criminal Misconduct, Corruption, Injustice and Sexual Abuse "Under Color of Law"
Eighty traffic stops in four years. Five robberies. Home invasion and death threats by armed Sheriff Deputies with AR-15s and shotguns pointed at my head and at my dog "Boomer's" head while two young children were mere feet away on a second floor. False arrest. False imprisonment.
Actionable evidence including recordings, documents, hundreds of witnesses contact information with no conflicts of interest esp. regarding crimes against children involving rape, abuse.
Only EXTERNAL demands might drive long-overdue official accountability, investigation, oversight, an end to abuses, brutality, crimes of a community & local, State & Federal corruption that would shock most Americans.
It sounds unbelievable, but is very much real in Wilmington N.C.
Though provided irrefutable almost certainly admissible evidence of criminal activities involving:
U.S. Department of Justice & F.B.I. involvement in extensive criminal misconduct by Corrupt North Carolina officials including sexual abuses of children, DA rape of accused women, theft of Federal funds, retaliatory murders, torture, violence & retribution against child victims, families, few have dared discuss horrific abuses suffered & retaliation by officials, prosecutors & bribed media.
This "Culture of Corruption," once pursued, is now Assisted, Protected by the U.S. DOJ, FBI USAO despite vast evidence & growing ranks of victims of violent criminal acts that any remotely moral person would conclude:
CONGRESS MUST HOLD THESE FEDERAL OFFICIALS AND THE STATE AND LOCAL SADISTIC CRIMINALS OFFICIALLY PROTECTED TO ACCOUNT.
NO OFFICIAL WHO ENGAGES IN SUCH EVIL SHOULD EVER BE MAINTAINED OR SUPPORTED IN OR ALLOWED TO HOLD PUBLIC OFFICE OR PRACTICE LAW EVER.
justice4all.substack.com/p/federal-stat…