Thoughts on BC Politics and More

Canada’s Millennials are doing worse than previous generations by virtually every metric. RBC Economics shared a report focusing on debt, labor, and economic risks.   They found that Millennial incomes are failing to keep up in the current environment, leading to less disposable income. Boomers are doing much better, so it may sound like it all washes out at a high level. However, the shift in consumption can amplify the shock of any economic downturn ...   CLICK HERE for the full story

  Canadian millennials , particularly those who own a home, are set to face steep interest costs and economic damage in the months ahead, according to a new report from RBC.   Rising interest rates are set to ratchet up the pain on millennials and younger Generation X adults, RBC argues, leaving them especially vulnerable to job losses should the economy slow sharply in the months ahead.   Debt loads are particularly straining on core-age working adults compared with two decades earlier, RBC economist Carrie Freestone argued in the report released Wednesday ... CLICK HERE for the full story

The Economist ~~ July 4, 2019 VLADIMIR PUTIN, Russia’s president, has declared the liberal idea “obsolete”. It will not surprise you to learn that we disagree. Not just because he told the Financial Times that liberalism was all about immigration, multiculturalism and gender politics—a travesty—but also because he picked the wrong target. The idea most under threat in the West is conservatism. And you do not have to be a conservative to find that deeply troubling. In two-party systems, like the United States and (broadly) Britain, the right is in power, but only by jettisoning the values that used to define it. In countries with many parties the centre-right is being eroded, as in Germany and Spain, or eviscerated, as in France and Italy. And in other places, like Hungary, with a shorter democratic tradition, the right has gone straight to populism without even trying conservatism. “To be conservative…is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the ...

I’M AN OLD MAN. That might not seem like much of an accomplishment to you, but there’ve been times when I thought I might not make it this far. I’ve turned 75 and that pretty much seals the deal. It doesn’t bother me anymore, being old, though it seems to be an issue with people who disagree with my opinions. A man who looked about my age approached me in the super market the other day. He said, “You’re the Armchair Mayor. I agree with you 99.9 per cent of the time.” People like to tell me how much they agree or disagree with me in percentage terms. Some say 80 per cent, some say “half the time,” and so on. It would be interesting to compare the percentages with the ages of those who are calculating them. My favorite meme, often posted on social media in response to my columns and editorials, is a newspaper clipping that shows a photo of Abe Simpson under a headline that says, “Old man yells at cloud.” I like yelling at clouds. Always have. Let’s be cle...