Featured Article

Looking Good vs. Doing Good

Posted by Michael Campbell

on Saturday, 28 November 2020 11:46

A new study explains the real motivation for donating to charity and supporting specific government policies. And in the process explains our love affair with virtue signaling.

The Gold Rally Has Finally Run Out Of Steam

Posted by Alex Kimani

on Friday, 27 November 2020 8:56

This year has been proving to be a gold speculator and investor’s dream after the yellow metal rallied hard to hit historical highs thanks to a perfect storm of  a global pandemic, massive government stimulus packages, weakening dollar and a stock market bull run that had finally run out of gas. The torrid rally represented the sharpest gain the metal has mustered in more than a decade. Wall Street hedge funds have been extremely bullish on gold, with some eyeing prices of $3,000 and even $5,000 per ounce.

To wit, Bank of America Merrill Lynch said that it expects gold to hit $3,000 by early 2022 while Citigroup and billionaire Thomas Kaplan, founder of New York-based asset management firm Electrum Group, believed that $5,000 was in the cross hairs.

But now there’s growing evidence that the gold rally could be done for now, and those lofty targets will remain out of reach for gold punters.

Gold prices have pulled back 13% after touching an all-time high of $2,075 in August, as a barrage of potential Covid-19 vaccine candidates continues to give the world hope that the worst could be in the rearview mirror. CLICK for complete article

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on Thursday, 26 November 2020 11:06

“The current rules close small bookstores, florists and lighting stores to in-store business but allow customers to line up at Costco and Walmart to buy these same items. If it is dangerous to buy a book at an independent bookseller, why isn’t it dangerous at Costco?”
~Dan Kelly, president, Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses

Going Green Could Crush Canada’s Oil Industry

Posted by Felicity Bradstock

on Thursday, 26 November 2020 7:37

As Prime Minister Trudeau reveals his ‘net-zero’ plan for 2050, it is clear that Canada is still very much reliant on its oil industry.  The new bill requires Canada to meet multiple targets to reach its goal of net-zero emissions by 2050, one of the aims of the internationally-signed Paris climate agreement. However, critics say the country has already failed to meet its targets over the last decade, making this plan overly ambitious.

In addition, Trudeau has failed to provide the required five-year targets or to clarify how Canada will meet the goal outlined in the bill. This calls into question its validity as previous Prime Minister Stephen Harper was forced to pull out of the Kyoto Protocol for falling behind on climate change targets, implying a potential penalty of billions.

While there has been significant pressure from international institutions and activists to go green, Canada depends heavily on its oil and gas industries to support its economy and provide hundreds of thousands of jobs. Canada’s oil-producing regions, therefore, see going green as a threat to the economy. CLICK for complete article

Trump Administration May ‘Rush Out’ Burdensome Crypto Wallet Rules

Posted by Danny Nelson & Sebastian Sinclair

on Thursday, 26 November 2020 6:55

Brian Armstrong is worried the Trump Administration is about to send the cryptocurrency industry a parting gift.

The Coinbase CEO took to Twitter Wednesday night to blast the U.S. Treasury Department’s rumored plans to attempt to track owners of self-hosted cryptocurrency wallets with an onerous set of data-collection requirements.

If the whispers are to be believed,  outgoing Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is preparing to tamp down on one of the fundamental tenets of the cryptocurrency ethos: the ability of the individual to hold their crypto (unmolested) themselves.

“This proposed regulation would, we think, require financial institutions like Coinbase to verify the recipient/owner of the self-hosted wallet, collecting identifying information on that party, before a withdrawal could be sent to that self-hosted wallet,” Armstrong tweeted.

If true, the regulation would represent a broadside against the U.S. cryptocurrency industry like few ever levied by the federal government. It would force corporations to know every counterparty to their users’ crypto transactions, keeping logs, tracking movements, and verifying identities even before a transfer could take place.