Saturday Post

A bit happening ...




Terribly sad news:

Lee Mendelson, the producer who changed the face of the holidays when he brought “A Charlie Brown Christmas” to television in 1965 and wrote the lyrics to its signature song, “Christmas Time Is Here,” died on Christmas day, his son said.

A reminder of the discontent Justin doesn't care about:

A new Ipsos poll showed Alberta residents feel worse off financially than those of any other province in Canada. 

On average, 28 per cent of Canadian respondents said they were cutting down on essential spending, but that number rises to 38 per cent in Alberta.

Greg Anderson, a political science professor at the University of Alberta, said it’s easy to see why Albertans took a turn for the frugal in 2019.

“Albertan consumers are not feeling all that confident nor flush with cash — any they do have is being held for a rainy day many probably think is here right now,” Anderson said.

The oil-rich province has been undergoing its worst financial crisis in decades. In November, Alberta showed a loss of 18,000 jobs, increasing its unemployment rate by 0.5 percentage points to 7.2 per cent — up 0.3 percentage points from 2018.

 
If Alberta's contributions were to disappear, eastern Canada would feel it sooner than it thinks.

Either the entire Trudeau family and its rotten legacy goes or Alberta does.

One the entire universe can live without and the other is Alberta.




It's just an economy:

According to figures by Statistics Canada, several sectors made marginal declines, with manufacturing down for the fourth time in five months dropping by 1.4 percent, and transportation equipment manufacturing slipping at a hefty 2.5 percent.

These aren’t the only issues that the Canadian economy currently faces, though. While the Economy has worked great for the wealthiest 10 percent, the typical Canadian family is falling behind. With rising food prices also expected in the coming years, it doesn’t look like smooth sailing for the foreseeable future.

Wage stagnation is also a problem. To demonstrate this, let’s turn to statistics from 2017, a year in which Canada’s economy exceeded expectation.

The economy boomed roughly 3 percent in GDP growth that year, according to figures from Statistics Canada. That money, though, went right to the top and skipped over working families.

The 2017 figures showed that average incomes grew just 2.8 percent in two years, with the top 10 percent taking in a quarter of all growth, and the bottom 40 percent only taking in one-fifth of all growth.

According to those same figures, a majority of Canada’s population incomes either stagnated or fell, while those in the top 1 percent saw their incomes boom.

As PressProgress highlighted, “adjusted for inflation, the average the after tax income of all families and individuals rose modestly from $71,200 in 2015 to $73,200 in 2017. That’s an increase of 2.8%.

But families in the top decile saw their after-tax incomes rise almost double that. The top decile’s incomes rose 4.786%, from $192,200 in 2016 to $201,400.”

It looks as though this sluggishness is going to continue. According to fugres by Statistics Canada for 2018, Canada’s GDP grew at 1.8 percent, and we’ve already seen the economy slipping in 2019, shrinking by that previously mentioned 0.1 percent.

News doesn’t appear so grim for our neighbours down south, though. According to the US Labor Department, the US grew “at their fastest pace for nine years” in 2018.

The department’s figures show that wages grew at an annual rate of 3.1 percent for October of 2018, another bump up from the 2.8 percent in the month prior.

The US economy has also been booming for months, as the general unemployment rate hit a nearly half century low of 3.7 percent.

The US’s booming economy means more good for minority populations, too, as the jobless rate for Hispanics hit a historic low of 3.9 percent, while African-American unemployment rate dropped to 5.5 percent, the lowest it has ever been.

**

A new wave of cold water is about to hit Canada’s much-buffeted oilsands industry but whether it will be a perfect storm or a tempest in a teapot is yet to be seen.

Tighter pollution rules by the International Maritime Organization are set to take effect Jan. 1. The new guidelines, dubbed IMO 2020, will limit the sulphur content of “bunker” fuel on ships to just 0.5 per cent, down from the current 3.5 per cent.

To wit: British Columbia will not allow Albertan oil to be piped to the coast but will allow coal to be shipped to China.




The Order of Canada has meant nothing since it was given to notorious baby-killer Morgentaler (and thanks for the full-throated defense of the Order there, Steve) and I suspect that this recognition is political smoke and mirrors to pacify anyone who feels like vomiting at the mere sight of Justin:

Stephen Harper was among 120 Canadians named to the Order of Canada this week by Governor General Julie Payette.

Harper, who served as Canada’s 22nd prime minister, will join the exclusive club of notable countrymen that according to Payette’s office, “honours people whose service shapes our society, whose innovations ignite our imaginations, and whose compassion unites our communities.”

The former Conservative PM joins film director James Cameron, retired diplomat Raymond Chretien, philanthropist and founder of McDonald’s Canada George Cohon and optical physicist and Nobel Prize winner Donna Strickland in receiving the highest honour, Companion of the Order of Canada.

Another reason why we should have nothing to do with China:

Hong Kong police arrested about a dozen protesters and used pepper spray on Saturday to break up a protest in a shopping mall aimed at disrupting retail businesses near the border with mainland China.

This isn't the first time such grisly discoveries have been made but one knows who is truly responsible for them:

Five human bodies and two heads were found on a so-called ghost boat washed up on the shore of a Japanese island.
 
The vessel was discovered on Sado Island, northwest from Japan's mainland. 

It had letters and numbers written in Korean on the side, and is suspected to have come from North Korea. 

Wooden ships believed to come from North Korea to Japan, nicknamed ghost boats, are fairly common, the BBC reports.

Coast Guard official Kei Chinen said police made the discovery in the wooden boat's stem around 9.30am local time on Saturday. 

Authorities could not confirm whether the heads were from the two of the bodies found or were from two other people. 

An officer first spotted the wooden boat on Friday afternoon but authorities waited until Saturday before entering it due to unstable weather.

The discovery marks the second time since last month that a wooden boat has washed up on the shores of Sado island.