Current Affairs

Rex Murphy: The country needs an opposition. Too bad O’Toole’s Conservatives seem too gutless to provide it

It is encouraging to see that the Conservative party has announced its shadow cabinet, as the party is in dire need of revitalization. Its election campaign was feeble and void of the slightest daring. It presented no core contrast with the Liberals and did not provide much of a counterpoint to the disastrous government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Now, with the campaign over, aside from a series of flares signalling distress over Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole’s continued leadership, the Tories seem to have deserted the public stage altogether. It was a very odd time for the official Opposition to go dark.

Despite their tepid campaign, however, the Tories did elect 119 members. This is not a small force. Why, with such numbers, the party and its leader haven’t been out every day since the vote — challenging the Liberals on various policies, highlighting the slow return of Parliament and making the case for alternative perspectives on the host off issues facing the public — is more than a puzzle.

They have avoided any real debate on the troublesome COVID mandates and a host of other very pertinent issues. The country, for example, is getting its first substantial taste of inflation — the first signal that the prime minister’s gargantuan and furious spending over the last year and a half is not the painless panacea his team insisted it was…read more.

U.S. predicts oil market will be oversupplied by early next year

The U.S. government projected that the global oil market will become oversupplied and prices will fall by early next year, cooling expectations that the White House may tap the nation’s emergency reserves.

Supply increases next year from OPEC nations as well as U.S. drillers will ultimately pressure prices lower. The U.S. benchmark crude will fall below US$80 a barrel by December and reach as low as US$62 by the end of next year and its global counterpart Brent will average US$72 a barrel in 2022, the Energy Information Administration said in its Short-Term Energy Outlook on Tuesday. U.S. pump prices will drop below US$3 a gallon by February, the data show.

“We forecast that global oil stocks will begin building in 2022, driven by rising production from OPEC+ and the United States, along with slowing growth in global oil demand,” the EIA said.

The Biden administration has been under pressure to act to suppress rising gasoline prices that are now at the highest levels since 2014. But the report may weaken the argument for a release of oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a move that had been seen as the most direct action U.S. President Biden could take to drive down prices, especially after OPEC and its allies resisted Biden’s calls to bring more crude supplies into the global market…read more.

Opinion: During COVID, the charter has been useless

Ten days ago the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench was the latest court to rebuff a constitutional challenge to COVID restrictions on civil liberties. Chief Justice Glenn Joyal ruled that provincial public health orders were constitutionally justifiable, joining courts from around the country in embracing the official COVID narrative and defending the authority of the pandemic state. Over the past 19 months, lockdowns, masking rules, traveller quarantines, closed borders, business restrictions and now vaccine mandates have made Canadians less free than they have ever been. Yet so far charter challenges to COVID rules have been spectacularly unsuccessful. During COVID, the charter has been useless.

How can this be? Contrary to common belief, the charter is not the foundational document upon which our legal system is built. Enacted in 1982, it was designed merely as a gloss on what legislatures and governments can do. In fact, not even the original 1867 Constitution, formerly known as the British North America Act, established the law’s first principles. Instead, the preamble of that 1867 Constitution includes an innocuous sounding but significant phrase, acknowledging “a Constitution similar in Principle to that of the United Kingdom.” Essentially, Canada received the British common law system and its legal architecture.

That system is built upon a few core ideas, among them the principle of legislative supremacy: with few exceptions, legislatures can enact any law within their jurisdiction as they wish. Those laws need not be fair, just or reasonable. They do not have to make sense or be justified by evidence. Almost 75 years before the charter, Judge William Riddell of the Ontario High Court wrote that a legislature “can do everything that is not naturally impossible, and is restrained by no rule human or divine. If it be that the plaintiffs acquired any rights … the Legislature had the power to take them away. The prohibition, ‘Thou shalt not steal,’ has no legal force upon the sovereign body.”…read more.

Big News! 2022 World Outlook Financial Conference

  • James Thorne took a contrarian view at last year’s World Outlook Financial Conference forecasting the S&P 500 Index would hit 4500 in 2021, a 20% gain – as of today it’s up almost 23%!
  • Ryan Irvine’s 2021 WOFC Small Cap Portfolio is up 114.5% – you read that right 114.5%.
  • Mark Leibovit said to buy the dip in Tesla at $555, it’s now trading at $1200!
  • Josef Schachter missed his oil price forecast, but it doesn’t matter when you get the stocks right. For example, he recommended Bonterra, Paramount and Yangerra – and sold them earlier this year for 179%, 361% and 147% gains respectively.

Those are obviously great results, but that’s why we search out and invite some of the top analysts in the English speaking world to the World Outlook Financial Conference. Obviously past performance is not a guarantee of future success but the consistent results we’ve achieved over the years have not been by accident. Our analysts have been chosen precisely because they have strong track records.

Whether you’re interested in stocks, precious metals, energy, real estate, economic trends or currencies we bring in the top analysts to the Conference to cover them all.

The 2022 conference will once again be entirely online. Unfortunately, there is still too much uncertainty for us to confidently produce a full-scale live event, and respondents to our recent poll made it clear they are not fully comfortable with the tight spaces of the Conference facility, the mask mandate and other barriers to travel and participation. On the plus side, we received overwhelmingly positive feedback on the broadcast and on-demand video format – and can promise you even better quality in 2022.

And of course, this ensures we can offer exclusive interviews and presentations with forecasters from around the world like Martin Armstrong, Greg Weldon, Mark Leibovit and many more. As an added bonus, for the first time we will be bringing experts in Fintech, de-centralized finance and crypto currencies to the Conference. The sector is booming, should you be involved?

An Exclusive Early Bird Offer – $50 Off AND You Can Join Us in Your Pajamas Again

You’ll be able to watch the conference broadcast at its regular times starting Friday afternoon, February 4th through to Saturday afternoon February 5th – AND you’ll also be able to watch it again and again whenever you’d like – on demand, anytime, from anywhere with an internet connection.

And of course, we have an online/on-demand “ticket” Early Bird offer for you. If you purchase your 2022 Conference access pass before November 26th you will get $50 off, a 20% discount – I’m thinking the best $199 you’ll spend this year.

I hope you will take advantage of this opportunity. The level of volatility and the violence of the moves in all markets necessitates taking advantage of the best possible research and analysis available. While financial programs and conferences often feature cheerleaders for a variety of products or industries, we focus on top flight independent analysis. Periods of historic change provide incredible opportunities and incredible danger. Join us in February to find out what they could be.

For more information on the Conference and to purchase your broadcast / on-demand video access pass CLICK HERE

Incoming NY mayor wants crypto taught in schools

New York Mayor-elect Eric Adams appears to be doubling down on his pro-crypto stance, asserting that schools should incorporate cryptocurrency studies into their curricula.

Speaking during a Sunday interview with CNN’s State of the Union, Adams described cryptocurrency as “a new way of paying for goods and services throughout the entire globe,” urging local schools to equip students for “the new way of thinking” brought about by blockchain technology and digital assets.

Adams also anecdotally noted surprisingly low awareness of crypto among his young constituents. “When I talked about blockchain and Bitcoins, young people on the street stopped and asked me, ‘What is that?’” said the 61-year-old.

He also indicated plans to encourage New York businesses to accept Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies as a form of payment, saying he would “tread carefully” and “get it right.” The mayor-elect added that New York must remain a “center of innovation, no matter what that innovation is.”

Adams’ comments have been met with mixed reactions from the crypto community on social media…read more.