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

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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

So Much Losing… The End of Year One in Donnieland

So Much Losing… The End of Year One in Donnieland 

Trump repeated his assertion that he’d “ended eight unendable wars in 10 months”, an exaggerated claim similar to one we rated Mostly False. He also said “no president’s probably ever settled one war,” which we rated False.

-       Fact-checking US President Trump’s speech marking one year in office - Aljazeera

 

By Gregg Wall (1-24-2026)

Trump voters got taken for a ride, again.  What else is there to say at the closeout of year one, second term.  If we are honest with ourselves, would it be any different if Kamala was in charge?  As I have stated many times, push the culture wars aside, and the two major parties – answering to billionaires & Wall St. - are fundamentally identical on the economy and foreign policy.   If anything, the affordability crisis, healthcare, housing, genocide in Palestine and the Ukraine, under a Kamala government, may have been worse, certainly no better.  Dem ’28 front-runner, Governor Gavin Newsom, was popping off at Davos this week.  Mr. Newsom is deeply upset about the fascism that has descended upon the United States, indeed the world, the Venezuela shakedown, the police state inside America, the neo-Nazi ICE goons, courtesy of Team Trump.  And to be honest, there was very little I disagreed with Mr. Newsom about, except for one glaring omission.  

Trump didn’t appear out of nowhere.  Like all demagogues and fascists, Trump had considerable help in his rise, from centrism, corporatism, the establishment, a failed state, neoliberalism, what the MSM likes to refer to as moderates… “moderates” are right-wing American politicians (Dems & GOP), practiced in the art of insider trading, on the take, on the make, entirely corrupt, and entirely owned.   If the United States was actually a functioning democracy -- that actually took care of its citizens, instead of dumping welfare on billionaires, multinationals, wars, and Wall St. -- would the American people have rolled the dice again on a right-wing dictator, an oligarch?  Assuredly not.  

What the California governor conveniently left out of his Davos rant is that his party was in power, not once but twice, before Trump came to power.  That, at the end of the day, as the alleged opposition party (in reality, controlled opposition), Dems are responsible for Trump’s rise.  Obama had an opportunity, as well as Joe Biden… but both “leaders” failed the American people, indeed the world, in spectacular fashion.  And even if they, Obama and Biden, didn’t feel that they could bring about the change necessary to prevent someone like Trump from coming to power, they had a duty to inform the public, to spell out to the world in no uncertain terms, what was wrong with the United States and what should be done to correct the country.  Here, I’m thinking of the greats … like Lincoln, FDR, Eisenhower (and his farewell address) … leaders who did not hold back, who laid it on the line and left it all on the playing field (with their very lives).  We saw some of that from the Canadian PM this week, Mark Carney, who has made the fateful decision in the last couple of weeks to be something greater than himself: a politician who has seen reality and chosen to act.  In this instance, in Carney’s case, by opening trade with China and spelling out the end of the rules-based order at Davos.  Carney’s speech, this week, was a profile in courage.  Acknowledging that the rules-based order was nothing less than American hegemony & tyranny … the rules-based order a sham, selectively applied (That Canada and the EU were willing to accept this charade, often at the expense of the Global South, because they received free defense as part of the quid pro quo. That is, free defense in exchange for silence.).  To be sure, PM Carney was a great deal more polished about the cold, grim realities I am laying down here, but he certainly opened the conversation.  And Carney’s speech certainly hit home, because Trump & Co. haven’t shut up about Canada since.  As for China, the conservatives inside Canada and the US quickly went on the warpath against Carney’s decision… trotting out lame lines about climbing into bed with communism, the instability of China, the national security threat, humanitarian & human rights concerns, the lack of gratitude to our American neighbor, the threat to Canadian jobs.   When, if Canadians are completely honest, the biggest illustration of a command/wartime economy, the creator of instability, Canada’s all too real national security threat, the godfather of human rights abuses, the complete lack of gratitude, the threat to Canadian jobs… comes directly from the United States under POTUS Trump.

Odd, I don’t recall Chairman Xi screaming to make Canada his 24^th province. 

 

 

So, back to Trump, in 2025 Trump revealed that he’s no agent of change, no prince of peace, and will do everything to enrich himself, the oligarchy, kowtow to Israel, and keep the United States government opaque, failing to release the Epstein materials (as of this writing, now more than 30 days past his own deadline).  What has Trump achieved: He’s failed on affordability, which enriched Wall St and monopolies immensely… there’s never been a better time to be a shareholder or in management in America’s monopoly, crony economy… or part of Team Wall St.- Financialization.  As for the American people, the bottom sixty to seventy percent are being crucified, slammed by ever-escalating prices, unaffordable healthcare, wages that have not kept up with greedflation, and yet, another tax, a devalued & depreciated US dollar (with declining purchasing power).  Donnie made his billionaire friends fabulously rich with his Big, Beautiful Bill.  DOGE, by all accounts was a failure, and yet it was a win for billionaires and the Silicon Valley venture capital set & Palantir: eliminating government jobs, hoovering up government data, monetizing and privatizing government, and providing justification for passage of Trump’s BBB.  DOGE was an abject loser for the American people, especially with its attack on Medicaid, Social Security, and Medicare… but a huge win for oligarchy.  Trump lost bigly with the American people on the genocide in Gaza, the genocide in the Ukraine, starting up wars with Greenland, Iran, and Venezuela, sucking up to AIPAC and King Bibi… but more importantly, he won with the Zionist princess, Adelson, he won with Peter Thiel of Antichrist & Palantir fame, and he won with billionaires who profit from endless wars, empire, and nonstop violence.  In short, in year one, the American people lost, and the American oligarchy – as well as the global oligarchy – won.  

America’s healthcare insurers have to be pleased.  Another year has come and gone and they still exist, despite the fact that America’s healthcare is twice the per capita cost of most peer nations… not, as alleged by Donnie, because Canada and the EU are receiving a free ride off the United States but because their politicians actually stand up for their citizens and demand that healthcare companies, insurers, and Big Pharma not rip off their respective nations.  Trump successfully achieved an ICE police state … attacked, incarcerated, and murdered Americans & immigrants…  enriched military contractors that armed ICE and the police state immensely (along with for-profit prison contractors, et al).  

Trump’s tariffs were a huge win for Wall St and administration insiders and GOP leaders in congress, as they, likely, front ran foreseeable market action and made a killing.  And then, likely, made yet another fortune, as Trump TACOed and reversed course yet again, generally 24 to 48 hours later.  The Street and insiders love volatility, especially when they’ve been tipped off?  All and all, Trump successfully outraged the world, friends and foe alike, while alienating the American people; all in all, in year one, Trump enriched himself and his friends, while the American people have never been poorer, more distraught, more runover.  Which appears to have been the pedo elite’s objective.  Fond of using the royal “we,” Trump loves to tell the American people how the latest invasion or scam is going to make them all rich, when the only parties growing rich are his family, billionaire donors, multinationals, Wall St, and military contractors.  Trump conveniently seems to forget, or simply does not care, that his administration’s ability to loot, pillage, and steal doesn’t trickle-down to the American people.

Trump’s Golden Era… reduced to being a crude and unwelcome, Golden Shower. 

 

 

If we are completely honest with ourselves Trump did a couple of positive things this year, and that is recognize his affordability crisis is caused by laissez-faire & deregulation, that is to say, allowing billionaires, monopolies, and Wall St to ripoff the American people with impunity.  Trump has been on a tear: proposing ten percent caps on credit cards, no more financial engineering for unaudited defense contractors, kicking institutional investors out of residential homes & apartments.  All of this with predictable push back and misinformation from the billionaire and Wall St set, like Trump’s proposals will destroy the economy and jobs.  (Just like the 90% - plus income tax rate for the rich, destroyed the economy in white America’s favorite period… Eisenhower’s 1950s.  Of course, the 90% - plus tax rate didn’t destroy America’s economy and our debt to GDP ratio, by the time Ike left the White House, was approximately 54%.)

None of this has happened yet, but we appear to have a beginning, finally, of an industrial policy to go along with our Orwellian command economy, our totalitarian economy, dominated by: cartels, financialization, greed, monopolies, oligarchy, private equity, speculation, Wall St, and the war -with the world- time economy… fully backstopped by the US taxpayer, exorbitant privilege, and federal reserve accommodative monetary policy (roughly 40% of GDP is government spending).  What is clear, America’s industrial policy, since Reagan, allowing the wealthy and Wall St to do whatever they want, including offshoring the U.S. economy, has been an unqualified disaster. 

That is to say, and as much as I hate to give Trump credit, he’s the first to acknowledge that allowing billionaires, banks, concentrated capital, monopolies, and private equity to openly prey upon and steal from the American people… and aggregate the spoils of the economy and government into the hands of a rapacious few… isn’t working.  Not unlike Carney acknowledging the Western rules-based order is a sham, Trump’s open acknowledgement that laissez-faire and neoliberalism aren’t working is monumental.  In short, we’ve met the agents of greedflation & six, going on seven years of skyrocketing prices, they’re all Trump’s donors and friends.  If anyone knows this tribe, many paying bribes to his administration, Trump knows.  Hell, he’s an expert.  Will Trump follow through, will Wall St go along with Trump’s proposals, and will our intensely corrupt congress actually pass legislation to make Trump’s nascent efforts to rein in corporate greed a reality?  Probably not. 

Another compliment is that Trump, at times, is the most transparent President we’ve had, perhaps in the history of the nation.  Are the establishment and Trump in the Epstein documents and files?  Absolutely, so Trump in transparent fashion stonewalls.  Is Trump running a fascist police state -- a dumping ground for January 6 deplorables, haters, and white supremacists -- you better believe it.  It’s as undeniable as Gator Alcatraz.  Is America an empire in terminal decline and wholly dependent upon debt, deficits, and war… at the moment, that’s a yes, yes, yes, and yes.  The administration keeps coming up Nazi.  Trump, by some accounts, really did read the Hitler playbook.  Hence, his overarching goal to save the United States, more importantly, the U.S. dollar, and keep the good times of looting and stealing (for Team Trump) rolling forward: adopting the Hitler playbook of world domination; stealing the gold, minerals, and resources of newly conquered nations; and backstopping & resurrecting the petrodollar, by making a 19^thcentury fuel source – oil & gas – great again.  Will Trump use conquered nations and demand that they purchase Treasuries with long tails and zero coupons (that can’t be traded)? … that’s what Hitler did.  See also the Mar-A-Lago Accords.  Give the devil his due, at this point, it’s readily apparent as to what Team Trump is up to: Making Themselves Richer Still Again.  Trump is telegraphing his blows, in a warning to the world.

And the final Trump positive: Billionaires are increasingly revealed as little more than a band of criminals, thieves… many possibly, even pedos… lawless thugs, and murderers.  With no special abilities, surrounded in hype, welfare from the state, socialism for the one percent.  Parasites attached to the federal reserve, the state, and the American taxpayer.  Entirely ruthless and malign.  We can thank Trump for puncturing the myth and revealing this truth to the nation and the world.  And that concludes 2025.  

Buckle in, put on your helmets, 2026, year two, for scribes and independent journalism, promises to be quite a ride. 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2026

Canadian & Venezuelan Oil and Conservative Machinations

Canadian & Venezuelan Oil and Conservative Machinations 

 

In fact, the quicker a transition happens, the cheaper it will be. Even without taking into account the savings to be made from avoiding costly climate disasters, a University of Oxford study found a shift to renewables by 2050 could save the global economy at least $12 trillion (€10.2 trillion) in energy system costs. As compared to sticking with fossil fuels.

-       How clean energy could save us trillions, DW News

 

By Gregg Wall (1-10-2026)

2026 started out with the overthrow, or coup, inside Venezuela.  Nothing upsets America’s parasite class, billionaires & corporations, like public ownership of resources, especially oil & gas.  By now, the playbook is well established… after impoverishing Venezuela with economic sanctions, crippling debt, and ensuring the nation couldn’t revitalize its oil & gas infrastructure for the largest proven oil reserves in the world, King Donnie went in for the kill.  Maduro was snatched and deposited in a New York courtroom, along with Mrs. Maduro, just three days into the new year.  Trump told the Venezuelan Vice President (paraphrase) we can do this the easy way or the exceptionally nasty way, but the oil is ours… $2.8 billion in Venezuelan oil has been pledged to the United States (as of this writing), with America controlling future sales indefinitely. 

Venezuelan crude is a direct threat to Canadian crude sales, both nations have sour or more commonly referred to as heavy crude, which America’s antiquated refineries depend upon.  Presently, Canada provides nearly all of America’s sour crude needs, this arrangement, which has been highly beneficial to America’s oil robber barons and Wall St royalty, could eventually come undone thanks to Trump’s Venezuelan pirate raid.  The fact that it would only take several billion dollars to update America’s refineries to process American sweet crude never appears to come up… the American refinery upgrades or retrofits are a fraction of America’s annual war budget, a fraction of America’s forever wars in the Middle East and around the globe.  Such is the corruption, insanity, and blood lust that is the U.S. empire. So much for the lie that is: Drill Baby Drill. 

Trump’s motivations for moving on Venezuela are many & varied.  Trump's catalogue of economic, ethical, & political failures is legion... So, like his predecessors, Trump pivoted to foreign policy to demonstrate his power, while underlining & highlighting his failures domestically.  What are those failures at home?  Trump pivoted to colonialism, foreign policy, war, & violence as a deflection & distraction from: Epstein, the affordability crisis, homelessness & healthcare, debt & deficits, soaring poverty in the United States, prop up U.S. dollar hegemony, push oil as a reserve asset, further oil & gas domination in global energy, and separately, for geopolitical reasons (see China & Russia).

Likewise, Canadian Conservative leadership’s motivations for pushing another oil & gas pipeline to the Pacific Ocean are many & varied, but also provide cover for, and center around, endemic failure of the conservative government in Alberta, presently under investigation (and more generally, the failure of deregulation, financialization, and libertarianism countrywide).  Very much like Trump’s motivations, the full story and set of facts have not been provided & presented to the Canadian public.  Like America’s conservative leaders… Trump, Dems, & GOP… Canada’s conservative leaders… Carney/Smith/Pierre, Libs, & Tories…are beset on all sides by an array of economic, fiscal, and monetary policy failures.  Financialization, crony government, monopoly, oligarchy, billionaires, greed as the paramount economic motivation, privatization scams… drain the economy, kill jobs and opportunity, destroy standards of living, present political instability, and syphon taxpayer money and central bank credit lines out of the state and into the coffers of the billionaire class & major corporations (setting off a doom loop of corruption & decay).  It truly is a hideous spectacle and is seen throughout the West.  Hence, conservatives clinging to the one true messiah, oil & gas.  A bigger lie has never been told and the endless brainwashing & propaganda surrounding this industry is second to none.

With that said, the Canadian oil play and conservative pitch.  

As Venezuelan sour crude is a direct competitor and threat to Canada’s/Alberta’s land locked sales to the United States, Canadian Conservatives - surprising no one - made an immediate pitch for more corporate welfare and socialism for an oil & gas industry swimming in profits; that is, yet another pipeline to the British Columbia coast (presumably at taxpayer expense, exactly like Trudeau’s recent pipeline).  The idea is Canada oil & gas can ill afford to be dependent solely on a US market (allegedly, soon to be swimming in Venezuelan sour crude, per the conservatives; Venezuelan oil that is being hijacked & taken over by Trump, the Oil Majors, & the American gov).  Canadian Conservatives, Poilievre & Smith, made alarming & shrill pitches on the X platform, attempting to stampede the public into immediate buy-in and support, without giving the full picture, without fully explaining Canadian oil & gas isn’t what it seems & hasn’t been for some time.  In fact, Canadian O&G is complete economic blasphemy directly aimed at the beating heart of the Canadian economy & federal and provincial governments’ fiscal affairs.   

Let’s cut to the chase:

·      The oil & gas industry is a blood sucking parasite on Canada & particularly Alberta.

·      It sucks up tens of billions in externalities & subsidies from the Canadian public & taxpayer, far more than it pays in taxes & royalties. 

·      Bleeds Canadians dry, while profits are realized in America.

·      Tar sands are American owned.

·      The industry murders 1 in 5.

·      Entire wars are fought on behalf of this industry, often to control & manipulate supply, markets, and prices. 

·      Presently, O&G is gutting its Alberta work force.

Moreover, the so-called Alberta Advantage is a lie, particularly when coupled with the “equalization” lie.  The equalization lie or myth is that Alberta pays more in taxes to the Federal government, and believes it to be a poor return, but conveniently leave out of the equation the tens of billions of dollars in externalities & welfare paid by the Canadian taxpayer and public on behalf of the O&G industry, annually. That is, if externalities (i.e. known costs & expense) were billed to the O&G industry and/or Alberta (like most other industries in America and Canada), the O&G industry would more than likely cease to exist, almost certainly in its present form, as the impact would be to double retail fuel prices, perhaps even higher.  Given the advances in renewable energy, O&G would likely be finished or at the minimum, consumption would be significantly reduced.

Importantly, there is presently no commitment from American owned Alberta oil fields to build another pipeline through British Columbia to the Pacific with their money.

Nor can Canada, to the best of my knowledge, order American companies where to direct Alberta fuel.  The Americans are making a killing on Alberta crude by sticking Canada with the bill, while the Canadian oil is sold in America at a steep discount but sold in the retail market, once processed, at a significant profit. By the way, this arrangement… Canadians pay for this abortion of an energy source, while American ownership profits… occurs whether the fuel is sold in Asia, China, or the U.S.

And we could go on. 

Notice, the points made above direct our thinking, not only to pipelines, but the sustainability & the viability of the industry, itself.  While I fully acknowledge the industry cannot go away, entirely, overnight, why should the public and the taxpayer continue to expand and build out infrastructure?  Why continue to support an industry that generates 5 to 7% of GDP, that does incalculable harm to human life, the environment, water, wildlife, and the planet (in the hundreds of billions of dollars, globally trillions in damages).  An industry that is a gross misallocation of taxpayer resources, that generates tens of billions in externalities annually… that clearly has zero intention of paying for cleanup, remediation, and bodily injury, economic and physical damage.  Why must Canadians continue to funnel money into this lethal and malign industry, when the future… free, clean, affordable renewal energy… is here.  A renewable energy industry that actually hires Canadians, versus a lethal & regressed oil & gas industry that is gutting its workforce, despite receiving tens of billions in corporate welfare, subsidies, and externalities annually.  If you're expecting gratitude from American ownership of the Alberta tar sands… you’ll find zero gratitude from American robber barons, only insatiable greed and Canadian Conservatives willing to do the industry’s bidding.

The argument that King Donnie is using his Venezuelan power play to further harm the Canadian economy and make Canada more ripe for a hostile takeover, only adds up if we continue down the path of spending tens of billions of dollars annually on the ultimate welfare queen, the O&G industry.  Canada must pivot investment & subsidies into the future: clean, renewable energy, and stop dumping money into Fort McMurray’s American owned BLACK HOLE.

Perhaps a bigger question still, why are our elected officials afraid to have this conversation?  Either they are ignorant as to the issues outlined above or they are shills for the oil & gas sector and just parroting the industry’s talking points… either scenario is entirely unacceptable.  As is the dereg, libertarian economic paradigm… a paradigm that stands for: privatized profits, socialized cleanup, expenses, externalities, and infrastructure. 

As important, why are Canadian Conservatives placing America first, Canadians dead last?

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2026