Zero Degrees of Separation: Alberta & Nigeria

Zero Degrees of Separation: Alberta & Nigeria 

 

In a post on the social media platform he owns, Elon Musk recently lamented, “Whoever said ‘money can’t buy happiness’ really knew what they are talking about.”

-             Elon Musk Is World’s First Trillionaire After SpaceX IPO, Bloomberg

 

By Gregg Wall (6-13-2026)

Just as white America has more in common with wage slavery and indentured servitude in Africa today, than U.S. domiciled billionaires, Canada has far more in common with Nigeria, in terms of resource exploitation and environmental degradation, than it does the United States (which has largely become a holding company for extreme wealth).  That is to say, our leaders have failed the public, while serving and enriching a predatory few. 

I’m not sure exactly when Nigeria came to mind, except that I’ve been focused on Alberta separation, the glorification of oil & gas by separatist traitors, and the cold hard reality that the wealth of Alberta & Nigerian oil and gas has been transferred to the United States & the West (while Canadians and Nigerians are left holding the bag on known costs, externalities, environmental degradation, and massive subsidies).  Some academics call this the “resource curse.”  Nigeria, of course, is often the primary producer of oil and gas in Africa… Its gas reserves are enormous.  Starting there, the parallels with Alberta begin to snowball.  Both Nigeria and Alberta’s governments own their resources but have leased those resources out to the private sector, U.S. and multinational Oil & Gas majors… and the all too familiar pattern plays out.  The oil majors syphon off the lion’s share of the profits, the governments collect a pittance in royalties and taxation (relative to Norway), slash their respective labour costs, trash the environment, and then flee their obligations and responsibilities, after selling off their leases to smaller bit and regional players (in Alberta we see this with abandoned wells and 1.5 trillion liters of tailings).  Corrupt Alberta and Nigerian governments fail to collect adequate bonds, collateral, and security for clean-up efforts. 

There are zero degrees of separation between Alberta and Nigeria.

Per my recent write up, Alberta separatist leaders (seppies) push energy as the provincial savior, push a product that is drowning Alberta in cleanup costs and hundreds of billions in liabilities.  The separatist leaders have ties to the Americans and have conveniently adopted the talking points of oil industry CEOs.  It’s all a pack of lies.  What seppies conveniently leave out: 

Alberta O&G, via leases & licenses, is essentially American owned;

US O&G is laying off the Alberta workforce; 

US O&G is sending massive profits to America; 

US O&G is leaving Canada with hundreds and billions in liabilities; 

US O&G treats Alberta like Nigeria… exploits and dumps contaminated air, water, and land on Canada… leaving Alberta far, far poorer than ignorant seppies will admit or acknowledge; 

The industry is lethal and murders one in five;

The O&G industry, in part, is responsible for endless middle east wars, as wars taking supplies offline is a sure-fire way to increase prices and profits. 

 

  Alberta’s high priestess of failure?  

So, the rational response?   Why can’t governments, Alberta and Nigeria, work together with the private sector oil utilities to produce oil and gas responsibly, pay for cleanup, healthcare costs for the citizen injured by cancer alleys and contaminated air, land, and water, damages to the environment, burning towns and cities like Jasper, Alberta and Los Angeles???   Or the Niger Delta which has been destroyed by oil & gas? 

Answer: If the oil and gas majors were properly assessed for their damages… bodily injury, economic damages, misallocation of taxpayer funded subsidies, and property damages in real time… gas & derivative products prices would soar.  Renewable energy, the competitor, is increasingly producing both free and reliable energy.  Oil and gas simply cannot compete.  Here lies an O&G industry on its death bed that is entirely dependent upon a lie, systemic government corruption, and politicians that refuse to assess this industry for its damages, past, current, and future.  Because the politicians are simply corrupt.  Alberta seppies believe they pay extraordinary taxes to the Feds… but they pay at the same federal tax rate as every other province.  (Alberta seppies feel like they are being shortchanged on so-called equalization payments/wealth-sharing arrangements.  But when we consider that both Alberta and Canada are accruing hundreds of billions in liabilities on behalf of the private sector, American owned oil and gas utilities, and Alberta will need a bailout from the Canadian federal government when the bill comes due… the equalization/wealth-sharing myth simply evaporates… becomes an even greater fairy tale.)

The bottom line:  The O&G industry receives trillions in subsidies and cover for wars & environmental violence… paid for by the Canadian, Nigerian, and Western taxpayer (and less directly by the accumulation of nation-state debts to prop up this repugnant and disgusting industry).  This industry is only viable by perpetuation of a lie and a swindle:  Privatized profits and socialized corruption, externalities, liabilities, and subsidies. Oil royalty and oligarchs grow richer, while the Canadian, Nigerian, and Western taxpayer gets nailed to a cross made of debt, gas, oil, and tar.

Meanwhile, Norway did it correctly. Norway placed its citizens first. Norway owns its oil and gas fields and uses state owned production companies to harvest the oil and gas.  Profits and taxes accrue to a sovereign wealth fund, so that Norway holds $2 trillion in assets for the people, while Alberta and Nigeria hold $32 billion and $3.4 billion, respectively.  The difference, Norway used the state and integrity to accumulate assets on behalf of its citizens… while corrupt Alberta and Nigerian governments allowed the private sector to loot natural resources on behalf of shareholders and oligarchs, exacerbating boom & bust cycles.  Canada and Nigeria are swimming in natural resources, rely heavily on the private sector for extraction, and yet, both countries have poverty problems, food insecurity, and failed neoliberal economic policies… the U.S. is facing similar problems.  Reliance on greed-first policies, growth, market based solutions, and shareholders before all have trashed all three economies.  For Norway’s citizens, on the other hand, resources are extracted by the state, wealth is extracted for The People, and poverty is virtually nonexistent (at 10%).   Essentially, the private sector FAILS the 99% in Alberta, Nigeria, and the U.S., while a well-managed Norway government and sovereign wealth fund WINS… in a pattern that plays out throughout the world. 

The Norway economic model, indisputably, is a world leader. The United States and rabid greed should be ignored at all costs.  It’s time to give billionaires the boot and give state intervention, management, planning… the Norway model… first priority.

Presently, there are zero degrees of separation for humanity, from Alberta to Nigeria and back again, to the United States.  Humanity and labour are being massively exploited, and given the shaft, by a global oligarchy.

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2026

Dismantling Separatist Arguments…

Dismantling Separatist Arguments… 

I would also remind all Canadians that we should not dismiss the legitimate grievances of Albertans.

-             Premier Smith

Separatist concerns are illegitimate, their concerns are easy enough to dismantle… and they are ill advised and poorly led.

-             J.M. Hamilton, X post

 

By Gregg Wall (5-30-2026)

It’s been an interesting couple of weeks here in Alberta.  Premier Smith, head of the separatist party, head of the rebellion… professes unflinching devotion to Canada, while bending over backwards to enable a fringe minority demanding Alberta separate from Canada.  The leaders of separatist traitors have reportedly, and by their own admission, been to Washington to talk to Trump administration officials about leaving Canada.  In January, separatist leader Rath was said to be seeking funding for a mini revolution, a cool $500 billion credit line.  And of course, Premier Smith, a former oil and gas lobbyist, spent weeks in Washington during the Trump inauguration. 

The separatists have taken over the Alberta UCP government with some members of the elected body openly supporting separation.  Separatist grievances and talking points are as egregious as they are specious.  Easy enough to accept if one has been fed an endless diet of right-wing and oil & gas industry talking points, but easier still dismantled upon closer scrutiny.  Nevertheless, what the separatist lack for in credibility, they more than make up for in energy and passion. 

Separatist leader, Dani Smith, who believes the world sets and rises on Alberta, summed it up best, when she recently attempted to ram a new British Columbia pipeline (w/ no private sector financial backing to date, and no backing from the BC provincial government) through a Canadian premiers’ meeting: 

“Let's remember these ports are not British Columbia's ports, they're Canada's ports, and in being Canada's ports, that means they’re our ports too," Smith said. "In the spirit of collaboration, that's the attitude that all premiers should take to this."

By that very same Dani logic, it could be said: Let’s remember these Alberta tar sands are not Alberta’s tar sands, they’re Canada’s tar sands, and in being Canada’s tar sands, that means under Canadian control.  In the spirit of cooperation and respect for the rule of law, the separatist party, UCP, should resign and turn themselves in for adjudication.

The separation craziness never ends… like all culture war conflicts… serving to keep the public divided and distracted from a laundry list of corruption, gross mismanagement of provincial affairs, gross incompetence, privatization schemes, and scandal after scandal… most recently, data harvesting from the list of Alberta voters, via an application linked to the US Ambassador to Canada.

Here then, separatist grievances: 

Oil and Gas… apparently all separatists have huge holdings in the oil and gas industry because they behave as if they are all oil and gas robber barons. Their blind worship for the industry, however, conveniently omits the following facts:  Alberta oil and gas is American owned; the American owned O&G industry is gutting its Alberta workforce, even as production explodes; the American owned Alberta O&G industry realizes profits in America and will continue to realize profits in America no matter where Alberta O&G is exported; and the chef’s kiss, the American owned Alberta O&G industry is dumping hundreds of billion in liabilities on Canadians and Albertans with the full complicity and the abject failure of the Alberta and Canadian governments. 

If you believe American O&G is your messiah then the separatist messiah is the devil.  Given US oil and gas history, one can expect the industry will have no problem walking off if called upon and ordered to pay their obligations.

No more taxes:  In the separatist libertarian Xanadu, the wayward leadership and followers believe they’ll never pay any taxes… despite the O&G industry’s reluctance to pay taxes, despite the American O&G industry having even greater leverage over the locals should it separate; despite having no retirement plan, no military, no foreign policy, no scale on pensions, no backroom infrastructure to run a nation-state.  Despite Alberta presently being in debt $109 billion, despite the separatists seeking a loan from the Americans for half a trillion (which translates into roughly $690 billion Canadian), despite being in the hole by some estimates for O&G cleanup and tailings $250 billion, that’s right: no taxes.  So much for the great separatist libertarian - no tax - fantasy. 

And, for sake of time, I’ve omitted the private sector tax for American healthcare, which will absolutely crush Albertans.

Jobs and opportunity will rain down from the heavens… except that won’t happen.  The O&G industry, despite explosive growth and profits, has been (and continues to be) automating and gutting its Alberta workforce.  And the industry that is seeking to hire, significantly, was run off by Premier Smith, that is the renewables industry. 

Trust me… when separatist leaders are confronted with the economic realities of their plan, they invariably fallback on trust us.  Let’s put it this way, if landlocked Alberta is getting a bum deal from the sale of O&G to the Americans now… what’s in store for Alberta when the new country is all by its lonesome?  What leverage will Alberta have then?  Zero.  If anything, the ruthless American owners of the Alberta tar sands will drive down prices even lower in the states, so they can reap fatter profits on the refined/finished product.  Nothing says “bend over” like the Alberta separatist.

Brexit comes to Canada:  While the separatists do not bring up Brexit a great deal, the parallels are not dissimilar, especially when we wipe out all the arguments for separation.  What we find, like Brexit, is a great many angry white bigots, racists, haters, misogynists, and xenophobes.  In both instances, Brexit and Alberta insurrection, the glue that binds appears to be hate.  Here, it’s particularly worth noting that just as the dereg, financialization, globalization, neoliberalism, and the Thatcher economy were and are a disaster in the UK, pre and post Brexit… if the Alberta separatist wish ever comes true, undoubtedly they’ll find themselves in quite similar UK like economic conditions, pre and post separation, if not markedly worse.

 

Prime Minister Stephen Harper with Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney, January, 2008 

Abject failure to hold Conservative gov accountable: Moving on from separatist talking points, interestingly enough the separatists have often built their entire identity around hating and owning the Libs. Which means the insurrectionist leadership have done their jobs of dividing the province and Canada, as well as polarizing their base and the counter response.  Undoubtedly, Liberals, in power since 2015, bear some responsibility for placing Alberta and Canadian families last and Alberta and Canadian corporations and oligarchy first.  But this same separatist tribe turns a blind eye to the failings of fifty years of conservative rule in Alberta.  Smith and United Conservatives have trashed the provincial economy, and yet, seemingly, not a derisive word is uttered against the UCP gov, unless said government is deemed insufficiently supportive of the separatist movement.  

Right out of the divide and conquer playbook.  

As for far-right PM Carney?  His actions speak for themselves.  Mr. Carney is likely the most conservative politician Canada has ever seen.  As I’ve written previously, Carney has gutted rules, regs, embraced deregulation, and is fast tracking corporate projects and supply-side economics at the expense of charter, indigenous, and provincial rights.  Carney is not walking, he's sprinting, and achieving a great many things conservatives, likely, could have never achieved in the same amount of time.  The Carney gov is going after labour and he’s bent over backwards to build a pipeline that the private sector has shown little interest in funding.  Turns out, "elbows up" is aimed at attacking Canadian families, labour, and the environment?  In dealing with the Alberta Premier, who is attacking and dismantling the Canadian Health Act, Carney has done absolutely nothing.  And in fact has come running to offer memorandums of understanding, and drum up support for the pipeline, seemingly, every time some new revelation of UCP corruption or scandal comes to light. 

It’s all reminiscent of Carney’s bait and switch on the environment and his “middle powers” speech at Davos… only for Carney to land on the side of American oil and gas and wanting to make America great again.

PM Carney, based upon his actions to date, appears to be here to ensure corporate domination and hegemony moves forward.  Advance corporate rule, tear down public services, push a campaign of austerity on Canadians, and ensure the shift right in Canadian politics continues apace.  It doesn’t get any more authoritarian and conservative than a private equity chairman and a Goldman Sachs banker.  Carney follows in the direct path of several bankers who came to power in Europe with neoliberal agendas.  

Ultimately, separatists love to whine and play victim, especially when they are the victim of the conservative ideology they ironically preach.  Whenever greed is given free rein or maximum freedom… massive poverty inevitably follows, as does its corollary endemic corruption.  The moral of the story: be careful of what you wish for, boys.

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2026

Qu’ils mangent la salle de bal

Qu’ils mangent la salle de bal 

 

 

“The only thing that matters when I’m talking about Iran [is] they can’t have a nuclear weapon,” Trump told reporters at the White House before boarding a plane to China. “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing: We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s all.”

-             ‘I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation,’ says Trump amid Iran talks, Guardian

 

 

By Gregg Wall (5-16-2026)

 

The "let them eat ballroom" presidency was in full force this week, when Trump downplayed the latest inflation report, released Tuesday, with headline CPI of 3.8%.  Producer prices bolted 6%.  Trump of course, is using the fear surrounding Iran possessing nuclear weapons to justify skyrocketing prices and oil and gas; but that’s a difficult sell when Trump assured everyone a year ago that America had broken off negotiations with the Iranians to destroy Iran’s nuclear program and subsequently “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program.  Mission accomplished… well, apparently not so much, at least not to Bibi Netanyahu’s liking, who appears to be dictating Iranian and Middle East foreign policy.  Even Trump acknowledged Israel drives ME foreign policy this week.    

 

Whoever is calling the shots, it spells out sky-high energy prices around the globe and expedited timetables for migration to alternative and renewable energy.  In fact, renewable energy is so plentiful in Europe that the turbines are turned off to subsidize higher retail energy prices and justify utility electricity prices (for essentially free energy).  Antiquated grids are used as the excuse for not passing on the savings and free energy onto the Europeans, so the establishment can profit off an antiquated energy source, oil and gas.  As of this writing, the average price per gallon of U.S. retail gas, per AAA, is 90% greater than when Trump left office in January 2021. Trump’s lack of worry about the finances of the American people seems to correlate with the explosive growth in his and his family’s personal wealth, which has said to have climbed sixty percent to more than six billion dollars, since returning to office.  The transactional POTUS appears to have possibly ripped off MAGA, set up a pay to play pardon service for the wealthy, many insiders are making a fortune on front running Trump’s zig-zag decision making, and Jared is jetting around the Middle East doing what Jared does best, hoover up cash from oil & gas dictatorships.  Et al, et al.  Trump style grandeur and opulence culminated in the ballroom and luxury bunker, that was going to be privately funded, then publicly funded, or some combination thereof.  The bunker and Trump’s Arch also screams Versailles before the revolution, as does the POTUS’ entourage of billionaires that travelled with him to Beijing this week (all of them, apparently, walked away empty handed).  Xi confidently educated and warned Trump on Thucydides Trap and the collapse and rise of empires, one of my favorite topics.

 

Trump’s damage to America and Americans is, of course, catastrophic.  Trump loves to bitch about Biden, but Biden no longer resides at the White House… Trump and MAGA own the chaos w/in the nation and the world today.  In the span of sixteen months, the Epstein administration has seen the national debt shoot up to $40 trillion, the dollar devalue at least ten percent, seen his DOGE & tariff policies collapse; in sixteen months, Trump has managed to alienate the world with his boorish behavior and bad manners, Trump allowed himself to be blackmailed -- or sucked into -- more Israeli wars and extended genocides, and the lives of tens of millions of Americans have been turned upside down by a failed dereg, financialization, necro-neoliberal economy … many struggling just to survive.  Seventy percent of Americans can’t afford the basics, fifty percent of Americans can’t afford healthcare… that fifty percent number seems low, when we consider the seventy percent who can’t afford the basics, sure as hell can’t afford American healthcare (which is two times the per capita cost of most peer nations, all with universal healthcare).

 

And always and forever, seemingly, the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein with one hand on the president’s shoulder, as Trump falls asleep and nods off for the hundredth time, after a night of ranting on social media.

 

Epstein presidency or the POTUS of pain -- or “the let them eat ballroom” presidency -- it all rolls up to one of the greatest catastrophes and incompetents to ever walk into the Oval Office.  Trump’s greedflation… Trump’s out of control spending… his micromanagement of the Federal Reserve… Trump’s debt & deficits, his wars, the collapse of his tariff policy, the failure that is DOGE… Trump’s failure to rein in billionaires, corporate, monopoly, private equity, and Wall St. greed…  are wholly responsible for America’s affordability crisis.  Our depraved, debauched, day trading congress isn’t riding to America’s rescue, and neither are the courts – beyond tariffs, which leaves the Federal Reserve.  But alas, even the Federal Reserve is not immune from Trump’s insatiable desire to micromanage, dominate, and control.  Quite the opposite, the FED’s dual mandate stands as a direct affront to Trump’s dictatorial and spendthrift ways.

 

 

 

 

 

This Friday was Jerome Powell’s last day, and now, a new FED chair will take the helm: Kevin Warsh.  Mr. Warsh will be the wealthiest FED chair ever appointed and is married into the Estee Lauder fortune.  Given congressional failure to address corporate greed and monopoly concentration… and a President that cares zero for the American people’s finances… it will now fall upon Mr. Warsh to fight inflation.  Will he step up?  The history of the FED shows there are precious few Paul Volckers and a great number of Arthur Burns and Jerome Powells.  Goddess only knows what Mr. Warsh promised Trump to become FED chair.  Trump, Wall Street, catastrophic national debt and deficits, rabid financialization, the insatiable empire and war machine, the incompetents and idiots that make up the U.S. congress, and Wall St/M&A all thrive on cheap debt.  The pressure on Mr. Warsh will be enormous.

 

As I’ve pointed out recently, all this free money, easy money has led to unstable prices, since 2008, has led to financial engineering, corporate consolidation, with colossal amounts of debt… which demands sacrifice.  That sacrifice, w/out fail, falls upon hardworking Americans (indeed, labor throughout the West).  That sacrifice is borne on the backs of children, families, and labor so the rich can grow obscenely rich… the sacrifice often arrives in the form of job cuts, suppressed real wages, nonliving wages and stripped benefits, and higher prices for products and services to pay absurd CEO pay packages, growing shareholder returns, endless demand for stock buybacks and manipulation, and service epic debt.  In short, central bank free money is a direct threat to the FED’s dual mandate, democracy, and the American people.  America is told we are at or near maximum employment and yet, 65% to 70% of Americans don’t earn a living wage, which I estimate – using the 30% rule of rents - at eighty thousand dollars per annum.

 

Will Mr. Warsh stand up to Trump, will Mr. Warsh stand up to congress and force them to earn their pay and make hard budgetary decisions… will the new FED chair shut down the imperial war machine and foreclose upon financial engineering and financialization?  Will Xi’s warning to Trump… Thucydides… come to life?  There’s one sure way to shut down the house of cards, put a stop to the money printing, and force a long overdue conversation and debate that America’s failed elites have delayed for decades.  Crisis provides opportunity, rampant greedflation provides an opportunity and cover.  The most powerful man in the world could jack interest rates to the moon and shut down this catastrophe.  Slam the brakes, just as Mr. Volcker did so many decades ago.  Such an act would likely earn Mr. Warsh nearly universal condemnation, would take tremendous courage.  And yet, that’s exactly what is required to bring greed, inflation, the U.S. empire, and Trumpian dictatorship to heel.  Call it a monetary coup d’etat. 

 

Truly, this will be Mr. Warsh’s Volcker or “let them eat ballroom” moment.  I bet he chokes.

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2026