Tracker

China will be whatever suits their goals, or rather, they will present themselves as such. To me, it seems that they have found out how to harness the power of the ant hill as ruled by an autocracy. They can and have become wealthy and powerful by economic means rather than military, and thus, why would they destroy or cripple their markets? It is in their interests to keep us buying their stuff and borrowing money to do so.

We should all no longer be surprised by Trump and his assortment of neo-nazis and idiots who are governed by nothing except self-interest. They uniformly have no compunction about outright lying or inciting racism and intolerance so long as it serves their purposes. As things deteriorate even further, their actions will become more and more extreme and if/when Trump loses the next election, it could well lead to violence on a large scale, and that will serve Trump's ends.

And in related news, the captain of USS Roosevelt, a US Navy ship, went public a couple of days ago because he had 100 COVID cases on his ship and was getting no help for his people. The Secretary of the the Navy (and Trump toady) leaped into action like a tiger and removed the captain. He left the ship today to a standing salute and applause from his entire complement. He left with his honour intact.

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.