Business, Finances,
Markets & the Economy

Two thumbs up to the City of Winnipeg’s administration for looking at how it can both reduce the cost of our city’s public library system and improve services. While the city has identified one major initiative – automating select internal services - there are several others worth exploring.

REGINA: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) is calling on the provincial government to scrap plans to implement its new corporate welfare program, Innovation Saskatchewan. The program would allocate $25 million each year towards Saskatchewan companies making commercial enterprises from new technologies.

- Michael Zwaagstra, Policy Analyst, Frontier Centre for Public Policy

When running a deficit, governments often use the need for expenditure reductions as an opportunity to cut programs they consider less important. Unsurprisingly, various organizations have offered their thoughts on what should be cut from Alberta Education’s budget.

VANCOUVER: The BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association (FIPA), the BC Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA), and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) sent a letter to Premier Gordon Campbell today calling for the return of BC Ferries to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

(Editor’s note: Don’t let the government trick you out of understanding the true value of gold and silver in the coming era of economic survival)..

What’s really going on with gold and silver?

When gold hit $700 per oz, it brought the price to a negative 7% compared to a year ago. This would roughly mirror the huge correction “within” the bull market we saw from 1970 to 1980. The same Bull Run that took gold from $34.50oz. In January 1970, to $850oz. by January 1980, that’s roughly a 2,450% increase!

The bull market is far from over! To say the precious metals bull market is over is as foolish as saying there was never a bull market in the first place! It’s a documented fact, throughout history, all bull markets last 14-19 years. This bull market has been going since 2001. So we still have at least, another SEVEN years to go. Commentators, who believe that the commodity bubble in silver and gold has popped, don’t understand what drives them in the first place.

Last week, General Motors finally declared bankruptcy. Many in government thought $20 billion in taxpayer dollars would save the company, but as predicted, it only postponed the inevitable. The government will dump another $30 billion into GM and take a 60 percent controlling interest for it. Public officials are now involving themselves in tactical business decisions such as where GM’s headquarters should move and what kind of cars it will build.

[June 1] President Hugo Chavez announced the simultaneous bankrupcy, restructuring, and nationalization of General Motors. This is the latest in a long conga line of nationalizations by President Chavez, who repeatedly claims he’s reluctant to do any of it. Like every socialist before him, President Chavez claims he doesn’t REALLY want to run the auto industry, or the banks, or the housing sector, or the health care industry, or the…. But he’s being pushed into it by circumstances so dire, so desperate, so epic that ONLY President Chavez can handle it.

And so, President Chavez stepped before the cameras today in Washington and announced that he was taking over General Motors. Not because he wants to, of course, but because he has to. He’s a reulctant auto executive, but his country needs him. His country is crying out for him.

DEARBORN, Mich., August 6, 2009 — Economists and job seekers alike are bracing for this month’s national jobs outlook due out on Friday. Will the report show some signs of hope or will it continue to point to double-digit unemployment? Will the national average of 10 percent take a comfortable dive or will job seekers continue to experience needle-in-a-haystack odds of finding new opportunities?

On this weekend’s “This Week with George Stephanopolous,” Vice President Joe Biden said: “We misread how bad the economy was.”

He and Obama “misread” how bad the economy was?!

Pardon me, but weren’t they elected on the basis of their self-touted ability to manage the economy back to relative health?

This isn’t the speculation of an Obama critic, but the simple observation of someone who has been watching economics for years.

The contributing factor to the next jump is the increase of minimum wage from $6.55 (an increase we had in July of 2008) to $7.25 in July of this year.