Tracker

After you.....

Another false assumption that there is only a binary choice. The ways to judge the health of a society are infant mortality, life expectancy, crime rates, and suicide rates, not how many TVs or Audis you have.

Brexit was fueled by Russian and right-wing disinformation and not well though-through by those who voted for it. Boris Johnson appealed to the same racist and xenophobic voters as Trump did in the US. The Labour Party had the poor judgement to elect a leader with the personality of a loofah.

This is a false assumption. In Europe, there is no mania about lowering taxes in a race to the bottom. Taxes are higher for all, individuals and corporations, but the inhabitants (apart from Brits) report themselves as the happiest in the world. And corporations are smart enough to realize that a happy, healthy workforce and consumers are the key to long-term success.

Its called "taxation".

So......we're talking about Saskatchewan?

TORONTO — Ontario Premier Doug Ford says the province will release data Friday showing how many Ontarians could die from COVID-19 in various scenarios. Ford had resisted calls to release that modelling as recently as Thursday, saying there were many different scenarios, but he now says medical experts will provide a public briefing Friday. He says Ontario’s chief medical officer of health needed time to compile figures that take into account the large influx of people, including snowbirds, returning to Canada and develop an accurate model. Ford says the figures released will be stark, and may be “a real wake-up call” for people. Nationally, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he isn’t able to share a national picture yet, but will be able to soon.

OTTAWA — An internal audit of outgoing Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer’s expenses has found he spent $18,000 a year of party money on private parochial school for four of his children. The special examination also determined Scheer spent party funds on hiring an extra housekeeper for the Opposition leader’s residence of Stornoway, clothes for his family, their minivan and private security, a senior Conservative source told The Canadian Press.

Kushner IS the task force and has more clout in the White House than anyone short of Trump. And he is as incompetent as Trump.

Gotta follow the well-thought-out Trump lead. Monkey see, monkey do.

Well then, it wasn't true until then.

Trump Literally Laughed at How He Can Game the Press With His ‘New Tone’ LATHER, RINSE, REPEAT The president is acutely aware that if he acts in a somber fashion, the media will quickly notice and praise him for it. As evening fell on Tuesday, President Donald Trump did what he’s done virtually every day for the past few weeks: He went to the White House briefing room to talk to gathered reporters about the coronavirus. Only this time, things were atmospherically different. The president wasn’t dismissive of the pandemic. He wasn’t overly self-congratulatory. He didn’t talk about the country going back to work in a few weeks. Instead, he was generally somber and even dour, acknowledging that under best-case scenarios the country would likely experience more than 100,000 coronavirus-related deaths. Afterward, the press noted the difference in “tone,” with several pundits and reporters speculating that the gravity of the moment was finally weighing on the man in the Oval Office. And Trump, three aides and allies tell The Daily Beast, almost assuredly noted the praise he received from them for his more “presidential” tune. That’s because, they say, there is no one who more voraciously consumes media coverage of himself. And over the past three years, the president has periodically remarked—sometimes with a self-aware chuckle or smirk—about how “easy” it is for him to trigger praise from a typically adversarial press simply by acting “nice” during a particularly weighty moment.

Your standard of living is determined as much by your outgo as income.

One of the clinical features of a malignant narcissist is the ability to sense when s/he has pushed too far or too hard and then s/he will temporarily dial it back and appear empathic just long enough to re-engage the victim(s).

You are being overly optimistic- I would think it will take decades and even so, it ain't never gonna be the same again.

The Free Enterprise System Strikes Again Wealthy real estate investor keeping Philadelphia hospital closed during pandemic stands to receive huge tax savings from coronavirus stimulus In Philadelphia, the most hated man during the coronavirus pandemic might very well be Joel Freedman — the wealthy, Los Angeles-based real estate investor who has kept a large hospital closed even as cases in the city rise. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and Philly Mayor Jim Kenney have been stressing that Philly will need all the hospital beds it can get in the weeks ahead, but Hahnemann Hospital remains closed because Freedman is asking much more for the property than the city can afford. And according to The Intercept’s Akela Lacy, a part of the coronavirus stimulus bill that has been passed by both houses of Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump could offer Freedman a huge tax savings and make him even richer. After purchasing Hahnemann in 2018, Freedman closed it down in September 2019 — a move that inspired angry protests in Philly, where the hospital (which opened in 1848) served a lot of low-income people. One of Freedman’s most vocal critics has been a non-Philadelphian: Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who has been stressing that Hahnemann (which had almost 500 beds) could treat a lot of coronavirus patients in the weeks ahead if it reopens and becomes a functioning hospital again. Freedman has offered to either sell or rent the building to the City of Philadelphia, but Kenney has maintained that he is asking too much — and possibly, Freedman plans to convert the property into luxury condos. Lacy, in her April 1 article for The Intercept, explains why the $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus could benefit Freedman: it “temporarily and retroactively lifts a cap on the property-related depreciation real estate investors are allowed to use to lessen their tax bill,” according to Lacy. “Depreciation is a paper cost that real estate investors can use to factor in losses to offset other income and reduce what they pay in taxes,” Lacy notes. “In Freedman’s case, that means he can use recent ‘losses’ from the hospital as it depreciates to offset his overall taxable income and, as a result, what he owes in taxes.”

Shouldn't that be singular and chronic?

Trump is setting a fire to distract from the murder.

U.S. Intelligence Concludes China’s Coronavirus Numbers Are Fake: Report U.S. intelligence has concluded that China has concealed the extent of their coronavirus outbreak, underreporting the number of cases and deaths caused by the virus. According to Bloomberg, the intelligence report—delivered to the White House last week—said China intentionally pushed out incomplete data and the total numbers coming from the country were fake. The outbreak began in China’s Hubei province late last year, and the country has reported about 82,000 cases and 3,300 deaths. The U.S., Italy, and Spain have all surpassed China’s known total number of cases, according to Johns Hopkins University’s tracker. The White House and the Chinese Embassy have not commented publicly on the matter. The coronavirus numbers of other nations—including Iran, Russia, Indonesia and North Korea—have also been seen as potentially undercounted. No surprise there. The available evidence suggests fatalities in the millions.

There is a saying that the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The PCs squandered the oil revenue for decades and now there is no easy way out of this economic mess that the provincial government has found itself in. The 1.5 billion dollars that will be given away will have to be borrowed and eventually paid for, but since hiking taxes in Alberta is political suicide, who is going to say that out loud. Kenney has done the equivalent of buying a (1.5 billion dollar) lottery ticket and is praying that winning will allow him to pay the mortgage. Gonna be tough times ahead in Alberta.