Carney and rules-based order, Davos… Rubio and a speech out of Nazi Germany, Munich?

Carney and rules-based order, Davos… Rubio and a speech out of Nazi Germany, Munich?

 

Speaking at the annual Munich Security Conference on Saturday, United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged European countries to collaborate with the US to build a “new Western century”, describing US-Europe ties as “civilisational”.

-       Marco Rubio wants to build a ‘new Western century’. Will Europe join? – Aljazeera

By Gregg Wall (2-20-26)

It should have been lost on no one that Secretary of State Rubio gave his “New Western Century” speech last Saturday… akin to Nazi ideology, mythology, Blut und Boden… in the same city as the beer hall putsch, the city of the Munich Pact that saw Hitler’s rise, Europe’s fall, and launched WW2.  The secretary of state appeared to want to make Manifest Destiny great again and invited Europe along for the ride (some might say Rubio insisted?).  Zero surprise, Rubio echoed Trumpian themes in his speech to the Europeans: eliminate liberal/progressive policies, shed your post-colonial guilt (i.e. glory in your white supremacy), pivot supply chains and purchases away from China, and shut down immigration. Moreover, Rubio seemed to insist that Europe stay out of American technology, buy US arms, and defer to and support American energy dominance. This, as the United States runs up record trade imbalances and seemingly can’t quit China (which remains a top trading partner and produces, historically, some of the greatest trade deficits for the U.S.)… making Trump not only boorish and an ogre, but an insufferable hypocrite. 

As I wrote in 2024, read here and here, centrist and corporatist leaders throughout the West have fallen and been voted out of office due to their failure & refusal to address the very real economic needs of their citizens and the wage & wealth inequality that comes with financialization, globalization, and neoliberalism.  And in a great many instances, these centrist and corporatists have walked far-right populists and authoritarians to power, like Trump and Rubio. In the darkness, there are two positive elements, certainly from my perspective: one, not only is political duopoly increasingly being recognized for what it is (i.e. a fraud and a front for oligarchy); but two, the populist right parties, which momentarily are ascendent, are already failing. The reason for that failure is that the populist right, being creatures of and in bed with the very same oligarchs and multinationals that sponsor the duopoly, have little or nothing to offer aside from culture wars, hate, rage, and xenophobia. That is to say, their economic policies, but for the exception of exhibiting a more libertarian bent, or statist twist, are by and large the same dereg, globalist, neoliberal policies as the duopoly.  All this is to say, the very same deregulatory, neoliberal policies that are failing the duopoly are also failing the far-right populists.

These populist right parties are already in trouble with Trump failing domestically and Trump running around bailing out… either financially or rhetorically or via threats (sometimes all three)… authoritarian leaders and states that Trump perceives as his natural allies, such as:  Milei in Argentina; Bolsonaro in Brazil; allegedly, insurrections in Alberta CA; Takaichi in Japan; Netanyahu in Israel; and of course, right-wing types in Latin America, such as President Kast in Chile.

In short, dereg, globalization, neoliberalism, political duopoly… centrist & corporatist politicians… are failing throughout the West.  Financialization is not just a dead end, it’s crippling and a net drag.  Only to be replaced with white-wing bigots, racists, & haters with identical or near identical economic policies: greed & oligarchy first.  Look at the countries and their far-right populist governments Trump has bailed out or may bail out.  Libertarian & neoliberal failure are everywhere.

 

 

 

 

The arrogance and the law of the jungle tone of the Rubio speech is in keeping with America’s treatment of allies, friends, and imagined foes amplified since Trump’s second inauguration and bookends perfectly with Canadian PM Carney’s speech given a month ago at Davos, which laid out an alternative path for middle powers (versus the hegemony & sometimes tyranny afforded by great powers). 

Mr. Carney made quite a splash at Davos by calling out the obvious (all the other leaders were apparently too timid or weak)… simply put, the U.S. is not a beacon of light and the rules-based order is dead (my words, not Carney’s).  That Canada and the EU middle powers should unite, against the fading light, against power, greed, and the law of the jungle that Mr. Trump fully embraces.  But unless PM Carney deals with the simultaneous failure of deregulation, financialization, and neoliberalism… and the egregious impoverishment of the Canadian people (i.e. affordability and well-paying jobs)… Carney’s domestic mandate – like that of PM Starmer & so many peers – may soon fade, as will the political foundation liberals need to achieve Carney’s new world order. 

That is to say, Carney’s vision is no vision if he doesn’t address the affordability, housing, and growing healthcare crisis in this nation.  The far-right, the populist right leaders are always willing to exploit their polarized base of support to deflect and distract from their corruption, greed, looting, privatization, and neoliberal policies.  Trade agreements don’t pay Canada’s rent; in fact, globalization and neoliberalism deletes Canadian labour (add in the labour cancelling goals of AI and it looks very grim).  Unless Canadians are prosperous and can afford life… unless Canada has a strong vibrant middle class, Mr. Carney’s vision will likely be very short lived or come to nothing.  At the moment, Canadians are beset on all sides by corporate greed and six consecutive years of corporate price gouging.  A devalued Canadian currency… Bank of Canada’s policy, in a classic beggar thy neighbor approach…  does absolutely nothing for Canadians and makes their purchasing power weaker still. 

Mainstream/Establishment economists love to hang their hat on precious GDP and growth … but look at the U.S, where GDP growth is meaningless, doesn’t put food on the table, doesn’t pay the rent, or come close to paying for-profit healthcare bills. Instead, GDP & growth pools in the accounts of the billionaire and monopolies.  More specifically, in regards American GDP, welcome to a command economy.  When 40% of the US economy is government spending, GDP is whatever Dictator Trump decides to make it.  When dereg and neoliberalism fails, money printing and military Keynesianism takes over.

Hence, Trump’s attempts to hijack the Federal Reserve, run a low rate regime, engineer QE, and push ultra accommodative monetary policy to lesson debt service loads; hence, Trump’s proposal to boost defense spending to 1.5 trillion.   

But with this much fraud and looting w/in the Department of War (unable to pass audits, year after year)… the American people receive nothing except endless austerity and the IOU for $42 trillion in national debt.   

This serves as a cautionary tale for Canada, the EU, and the UK… who share with America a failed economic paradigm, colossal & growing debt, a predatory economic aristocracy, highly detrimental financialization, and the drive for greater military spending as a panacea (as often as not driven by economic decline and Trump’s & Rubio’s obvious threats). 

PM Carney seems to be going down the well-worn path of heads of state embracing deregulation, globalization, and neoliberalism… and capital & greed first policies, like supply-side and trickle-down.  Policies that finished off Trudeau and countless other centrists and corporatists, like Sunak, Starmer, Draghi, Biden, Harris, Scholz, Merkel, and Macron, etc., etc.  These neoliberal policies… clouded & obscured in words and ideas like triangulation, three-dimensional chess, and variable geometry… are just more of the same.  A “neoliberal same” that has seen the middle class eviscerated and billionaire net worth soar… wage and wealth inequality skyrocket… they’ve also seen soaring poverty and life itself has become unaffordable for far too many. 

Carney is riding a wave right now because of Trump and it’s doubtful that Carney would have been elected without Trump’s ravings.  I certainly wish Mr. Carney all success.  Carney comes off as calming, professional, and staid, during a time of chaos… so I understand the attraction for a great many Canadians.  But remember who Carney is… a banker, and where he comes from… private equity.  And remember who Carney serves: Great Wealth.

As part of the PM’s pivot, he needs to rebuild the Canadian middle class and address affordability & labour concerns… or all his efforts at variable geometry will, likely, amount to precious little or at best more of the same.  Trade is great, but the last two decades have seen the middle class throughout the West destroyed, including Canada’s.  Trade must be labour focused, not mere arbitrage and a race to the bottom. 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2026

Another economist pushing… Financialization

Another economist pushing… Financialization

Canada’s economy is on life support, the nation is in a clear recession watch, and the Bank of Canada needs to cut interest rates further, says an economist.

A new report from Rosenberg Research, Canadian Economy on Life Support, shows that despite interest rate cuts from a high of five per cent in 2024, per capita GDP is still falling, and the economy is growing at only one per cent annually.

-       Canada’s economy is on life support and country is in recession watch, says economist, BNN Bloomberg

-        

The annual value of US equities turnover has amounted to $85 trillion, or 370 percent of GDP—about 60-75 percent of which has been executed by algorithmic and high-frequency trading, buying and selling securities in matters of seconds. It is not clear how such activities may have helped raise funds for companies to do business.

-       Financialization has increased economic fragility, Atlantic Counsel

 

By Gregg Wall (2-7-2026)

The sky is falling, the sky is falling, cried the economist… a mouthpiece for a failed status quo.  The problem?  Per the economist, Canada is not growing, growth has stalled, and the solution is more rate cuts… more monetary welfare for financialization, rapacious oligarchs, and the neoliberal paradigm that has failed Canada, the EU, and the United States, since at least 2008.  Rate cuts (aka welfare for the connected and powerful), of course, have destroyed Canada’s middle class, led to cheap finance for M&A, the offshoring of the economy & factories, juiced asset valuations for the uber wealthy… all of which, along with unlimited taxpayer welfare for the rich, fueled industry consolidation, cartel and monopoly formation, and further resulted in monopoly pricing power and monopsony power to crush wages. How ironic that the economist’s policy prescriptions are a direct attack upon the dual mandate in America, and the primary concerns of the ECB and BOC.  To wit, stable prices, full employment, and growth.

The economist in question fails to address several items; he merely calls for more monetary welfare for the powerful, the lords of finance, private equity, and venture capital (the cancerous tail that wags the economic dog).  First, decades of growth have produced little or nothing for Americans and Canadians, as the spoils of the economy – wages & wealth – have gone to a predatory few. Wage and wealth inequality are out of control in Canada and even more obscene in the United States.  

Second, the problems Mr. Rosenberg describes are problems nearly all Western economies face… the aforementioned cartels, financialization, monopolies, and wholesale theft and looting by capital.  None of this is novel inside Canada or the West, they are the norm, the result of a failed economic model and paradigm, continuously propped up and on life support by debt, deficits, and increasingly, military Keynesianism.  Poverty is endemic throughout much of the West, excepting, notably Scandinavian countries, which, with a healthy social welfare state, produce the happiest citizens in the world.  And Canada is no exception.  When Mr. Rosenberg talks about “life support” perhaps he should consider what is obviously on life support and that is the dereg, financialized, necro, neolib economy (continuously fed the morphine of central bank money printing, quantitative easing, and the low interest rate regime to manage debt, debt service loads, and endless financial engineering – at the expense of CAPEX, the real economy, and real wage gains).  

Which brings us to number three, compare Canada to our southern neighbor, that is burning its economic, fiscal, and monetary candle at both ends and the middle, with:

·      $42 trillion in national debt (including Donnie’s $4 trillion Wall St bailout);

·      40% of GDP is government spending;

·      U.S. debt to GDP (federal only) is 124%;

·      Endless colonialism, violence, and wars, including a police & surveillance state that is attacking the American people;

·      An empire that is a money pit, along with our friend(?), Israel… an America that increasingly finds itself without friends.

And number four, and finally, none of this is sustainable.  King Trump has alienated the world, attempting to have it both ways: pretending there is a rules-based order when clearly there is not, as Trump imposes brute force and threats to Americans, friends, and foes alike.  Canada stands out as the only peer nation the US runs a trade surplus with (sans oil & gas).  Canadian oil and gas the ungrateful Americans make a killing on, while Canada pays the O&G industry’s obscene externalities, subsidies, tax breaks, and welfare.  Let’s be clear, Canada’s economy is not seeing growth because it’s under attack by an ungrateful, greedy American government.  If one studies economies addicted to financialization & financial engineering, one finds out they are addicted to debt, deficits, and growth in money supply (hallmarks of both a debt trap and a doom loop).  And we all know where that leads.  That’s right, a disaster.  Rampant military Keynesianism over sustained periods… same nasty ending: a hideous misallocation of taxpayer resources.

Rosenberg’s policy prescriptions are more of the same: more of the very policies that placed Canada and the West into the horrible positions we find ourselves in today. That is to say, doubling down on financialization, concentrated wealth and power, oligarchy, pathocracy, and endless support for wealthy boomers (who have, often, hitched their wealth to their homes, while there’s an affordability and a housing crisis throughout North America).  The West compels citizen support for a low-rate regime by tying their homes and wealth to a low-rate regime, while the macro damage to the economy, jobs, and opportunity are catastrophic.  Please look around and tell me what you see.  If central banks want to aid the public and discourage economy cancelling financial engineering and the wartime economy, they should try a bifurcated rate regime… surely central banks can manage that.  They should certainly stop devaluing currencies. 

At the end of the day, aggressive monetary policy is just more welfare for the predatory elite.  Policy that works at cross purposes with the FED’s and many other central banks’ mandate, max employment and stable prices, by feeding a colossal drag on the economy.  Once again, financialization, financial engineering, oligarchy, private equity, VC and monopoly are activities, personages, and business practices that should be discouraged, crushed, and eliminated.

All known killers of the Canadian and American economy and jobs. 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2026