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Two Interesting article on CBC..

“We don’t need them to make our cars. And they make a lot of them. We don’t need their lumber, because we have our own forests.
We don’t need their oil and gas. We have more than anybody.”

D.Trump about Canadian raw materials.

Some want to extend an olive branch, while others want to fight back.

Canadian politicians of how to mitigate against Trump’s tariffs.

Retaliations .. sure; negotiations .. why not .. ; scrapping of inter provincial trade barriers .. it’s a shame that we still have them…

I like all of those BUT what I dislike is, that all of them, including J.Trudeau, are talking about Canada as the reliable and premium source of raw materials for US. This is exactly the trap Canada have been going into for many years , probably, thinking that being the primary supplier for US manufacturing is a good and reliable source of income for generations and US is our friend “with benefits”.

BUT it is not ! The same as we should not too !

What D.Trump is proving to us now that manufacturer can easily press its supplier disregarding of how loyal it is if he is observing some better sources of what he needs and then bulling supplier to become incapable of establishing its own prices .. 51-st state probably will not.

Is such view on Canada from the southern boarder something new? For example, about seven years I heard very similar remark from one of my former classmate who teenager had emigrated with his parents to US from USSR in the mid of 1980-th. Unexpectedly decades after we have got a chance to talk and when he has leaned that I’m leaving in Canada, he has said .. “a-a-a Canada – our cold and poor province”.. It was very surprisingly to hear but it didn’t sound like just a joke.

Greenland is another target of Trump’s noisy “bla bla bla” that Denmark should give it up to US in a sake of “protection of democracy” .. but why not for the same sake to UK, Canada, Sweden, France, Germany .. why US. I think that it should be a waking point for Denmark and Greenland to get rid of US military as quick as possible not repeating the same mistake as Ukraine had done allowing Russian military base in Crimea on the promise of cheap oil and gas but instead received a stab in the back in 2014 from “anonymous green men” speaking good Russian language. There is no reason to wait for the “anonymous white men” with Texas accent.

And, just for my curiosity , from whom he would like to defend the democracy – from his good friend “vova putin” or from some other good friends?

BUT, at the same time, all those Trump’s outcries .. tariffs .. tariffs (piasters..piasters) sound like a vigorous desire for the cheap raw materials which he believes US can process into goods which can be sold even at the existing prices to the material’s suppliers resolving trade balance in US favor. Economically cheaper raw materials allow higher labor cost’s portion while keeping the total production cost and margin at least the same. Increased labor part vs. materials means that you may pay moderate wages in domestic production. Through that he is planning to achieve several goals simultaneously – lower unemployment, better income for his “fellow Americans” , better consumption, more believers in his “make America great again”. Smart guys !

But for our prosperity we probably should pursue similar agenda too BUT using OUR raw materials. Why not allow Americans to cut their forests, mine their minerals from their land, drill their land as much as they want.

Some time ago I was driving through Kurt Cobain’s hometown of Aberdeen, WA. Really depressing place full of trash cars and houses; my preference was not to stop there and pass it as quick as possible. Maybe under Trump they intensify forest cutting, restore they sawmills and make “Aberdeen great again”. Probably you can find “a lot” of such “Aberdeen”‘s across US.

Why should we deprive their efforts by selling them our lumber, grain, meat and oil?

Why don’t we do something more useful and valuable from our lumber, grain, meat and oil ourselves finding new clients within European Union, Commonwealth and around the globe?

Why do we really need those Shell and Esso selling on our land petroleum refined from our oil? Why we cannot refine our oil ourselves and sell petroleum mostly through Canadian owned operators? All US ones should be under tariffs and increased taxation; why not if we are talking about tariffs at a full scale now?

Why don’t we define our priorities in developing manufacturing and sell semi-finished and finished products at better margins transforming ourselves from US raw material appendage to an industrial world leader? So, if US guys need our aluminium they should get not aluminium but details from aluminium at the price cheaper than if they produce it inside US. And the same with the products from our grain, meat and oil.

Yes, it is more complicated from commercial point of view. Yes, it requires investments into automation to reduce labor costs to compete with Asia in this .. and a lot of other “yes,..” ; BUT if we don’t set up such goals today we may finally end up as 51-st state.

Let’s stop pouring our money into such things like 200$ rebate presents .. very sweet, I’ve got it too. BUT I prefer those money would have been poured into developing of the Canadian cloud data center allowing Canadian companies to keep their IT systems there instead of on Amazon, Google, IBM, Oracle and Microsoft.

Actually, I’m starting thinking that maybe it’s not bad at all that America has finally delivered those Trump+Musk twins waking us up from sweet dreams on American’s lullabies.

It looks like that some magically my cry about “crypto undervaluing” has been heard and addressed.

“My NEW Official Trump Meme is HERE! It’s time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING!” (D.Trump)

“WINNING” – just curious – for whom?

Searching Internet you can find meme coins definition which sounds a little bit strange and controversial: “A meme coin (also spelled memecoin) is a cryptocurrency that originated from an Internet meme or has some other humorous characteristic.” Wow.. Is it just the other humorous characteristic of D.Trump or however something more.

So, I’ve asked myself – what is really “crypto” about?

After some contemplation and research I’ve realized how much philosophy and psychology are there.

For example, when you are buying the shares or some bank / government securities you always assume that you are getting some “portion” of something very valuable that could finally materialize in some products produced, lands and the other property owned and people living and producing there very useful and important that others love to have.

Buying foreign currency is more tricky – for me it’s like evaluating the capabilities of the other counties against my country in producing valuable things including labor. I remember my first realization of that living in ussr where at that time ruble’s official rate was 0.71 rubles = 1 USD but on the black market it was 5-6 rubles for one dollar and if you would be caught with 100 USD in the pocket you would get five years imprisonment at least. Probably, by such way our communist dictators tried to convince us that we were living in the very powerful and prosperous country, and for them it was and I had no doubts of that, but not for us because we mysteriously knew that for dollars we could buy much better life. .. And still can. .. And I remember how quickly even old ladies on the farmer and flee markets started to except dollars after ussr crash in 1992 when ruble became just a “paper” which it always had been but we had been so suppressed by dictatorship laws and blinded by communist propaganda that we were not seeing this.

Dollar have been as some insight and believe that America is there and will be there and is doing fine and will be doing fine.

The same can be applied to pounds, euros and the other currencies which we name “hard currency”.

But why does we have such ideas? Does it somehow relate to the believes that those “hard currency” societies are more stable in long-term prospective rather than those with “soft” currencies?

Anyway .. Coming back to crypto I’m really curious of what really people know or believe in when they are buying some virtual records, named “bitcoin” or “$TRUMP” / “$Melania” in a spread databases with the magic name of “blockchain”. The only answer I can elaborate that they believe in selling those records on a higher price in some future buying more valuable things than they could not afford at the beginning in any place that allows conversion of those records into real money or accepting those records as a payment.

But, what is backing those records today except people that exchange their currencies from their bank accounts on those records, and, probably, some actors who agree to exchange some real merchandise on those records, and some banks, that are cashing those records. The only way for all of them to increase the value of those records is to lure more and more buyers convincing them that is it much better and reliable way to gain than playing virtual casino or lotteries, for example. It’s really interesting that despite the chance of winning in gambling is very low, millions of people are loosing billions of dollars every year. Why? .. probably because time to time some lucky winners are presented to the public and the losers regain their hope of becoming lucky one day too.

Maybe that is why, there are so many noisy words about crypto market prices, how reliably records are kept, what a complicated math algorithms are used in “mining” new coins and determining their prices. At the same time, more than $2.2 billion have been stolen in 2024, $1.7 billion stolen in 2023 and $3.8 billion stolen in 2022 and you need to wait years in courts for reimbursements.

I read interesting article about 2016 hack case on Reuters and, what I really “like” is that :

“Following the theft, Bitfinex suspended trading, Bitcoin’s price dropped 20%, and Bitfinex decided to “generalize” losses across all accounts and assets. All Bitfinex customers (even those not impacted by the hacking) found their holdings decreased by 36.06%. In place of their missing holdings, customers received BFX tokens (and in certain cases, Right to Recovery Tokens (RRT)), which have not garnered the same returns as the lost cryptocurrency.“

and that:

“As to who will receive the $9 billion in recovered Bitcoin, a restitution hearing is scheduled for Feb. 25, 2025. In a recent filing, the DOJ stated, “it does not believe Bitfinex or former accountholders of Bitfinex qualify as ‘victims’” under the Crime Victims’ Rights Act or the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act. Nevertheless, at the same time, “out of an abundance of caution,” the DOJ set up a website to collect statements from persons impacted by the 2016 hack.“

In this case the thieves are living in USA and have been arrested there but what if they are living in Russia, Iran, China or North Korea and working under those countries authorities supervision? Will you recover something then?

I also like the words “coin mining” and its description as “the process by which networks of specialized computers generate and release new Bitcoin and verify new transactions”. Sounds really something but I’m just curious why all those smart algorithms make those, who posses and run them, to gain something and most of those, who use them, to lose something ?

Transaction fees, cash out fees, entering fees, what ever fees – more users , more activity -> bigger fees .. while you are sitting and waiting your momentum of others joining and increasing your asset, those smart guys not only have got your cash but also charged you for that without all bank’s guarantee burdens and interest returns.

From another hand current reality is that crypto much better than offshore accounts suits different kind of criminal activities like tax evasion, drugs money and laundering due to its much less regulations and transactions traceability in comparison with the banks.

It could be really funny if some drug mobs invest in “$TRUMP” / “$Melania” .. what and whom bomb in such case.. but I’m sure D.Trump will find the answer easily.

Make Memes great again !

Why are they starting to pronounce so many provoking words about Greenland, Panama, Canada ? I mean D.Trump and his puppet Musk .. or maybe it’s vice versa .. not sure yet.

Why would they like me and probably some other Canadians feeling some insult by mocking my Prime Minister J. Trudeau, what ever you like him or not? It looks like most of the people of Greenland, Denmark and Panama have hurt in their feelings as well? Are those messages for us encouraging us to become more stronger and ready to retaliate? Or they are for their “fellow Americans”? Some type of smoke, you know, to obscure D. Trump’s promises of 19+ million deportations; tax cuts and making coffee cheaper for his fellows by imposing tariffs on us, Canadians, as well as Mexicans and Chinese; desolation of drug’s cartels; stopping russian invasion on Ukraine in one day.. what else I’ve missed … water to wine?

And now what?

“Trump border czar privately tempers Republican lawmaker expectations on administration’s initial deportation operation” (CNN, Sat January 11, 2025)

Even more… Russia, North Korea, Iran and China do not care about D.Trump rhetoric continuing the war, nuclear weapons development and expansion. Why?.. because what really D.Trump+Muck can do about it – prohibit Tesla sales, but China has biggest Tesla plant already, which means it has its technology and can produce “特斯拉” without Tesla ; Russia is quite successful in, as they name it, “parallel import/export” and disregarding licenses completely; impose more sanctions but most of them surviving them years due to the sanctions is a marathon that lasts more than four years and the final benefits will gain the others.
Maybe they don’t understand, that in fascist states ordinary people play no role in politics and in changing the establishment. Their task is to work for the reward that their rulers think is fare enough – if they don’t work, they will not get it at all; if they refuse they will be forced to; if they riot they will be prosecuted and will work in the labor camps (sorry, correction and professionally improvement centers) just for food in order to survive.
Maybe they do understand and start blowing the smoke .

I don’t like conspiracy myself but have no choice but think that maybe “Greenland, Panama, Canada etc.” smoke is just next step in D.Trump+Musk, so far, successful strategy to demonstrate to their fellow Americans that their President, followed by his “Sancho Panza”, is the real strategic Thinker concentrating on the next global projects while dining in Mar-a-Logo, playing golf and promoting his TRUTH Social network by all means while wanting all his subordinates to fulfill all his promises “by yesterday” and not later!

By the way, bankruptcy and convictions have been successfully avoided by making so many promises to the population, overfed by Iron Man and Superman making “America great again” in every movie. “Fellow Americans” have swallowed them so easily, even without demanding some explanations of how to achieve practically, what impact would be from retaliations and how to leverage them. Even USA media didn’t demand answers on those questions, probably, believing that USA is so powerful that nobody would retaliate forgetting that all USA power is fully based on giving money, a lot of money, to those whom USA would like to hear USA and do something for USA.
No money, no influence and power – this is the ugly truth proved so many times in USA history but it looks like most Americans don’t want to realize.

But let’s move on with my conspiracy. So, next step – lure as much as possible influential users into TRUTH Social starting from President’s circle and expanding it further and further. Similar strategy as having World Beauty Pageant and making luxury hotels attracting beauties, celebrities and wealthy public, circling and mingling and paying enormous premium per night for that.
It takes time but, probably, four years could be enough to develop it to the level of X and then merge in both advantage.

“Voilà” – circus gone, clowns clean and filthy richer .. A-a-ah, what’s about coffee.. 10 bucks now? ….. 10 bucks? So, unbelievably cheap? Great job Sancho !

Would be happy to be wrong as I also think that today Latte is overvalued while crypto undervalued and something has to be done with it urgently !

Trump’s official election platform says that when he takes office he will order the Pentagon to use “special forces, cyber warfare, and other covert and overt actions to inflict maximum damage on cartel leadership, infrastructure, and operations.”
Reuters, Dec. 22. 2024

Probably it’s too earlier to make conclusions of D.Trump’s future “Make America less drugs” fight but most of the words pronounced so far indicate that some images of Iron Man / Superman crashing narco-syndicate production facilities are prevailing in the his and his supporters minds. Just imagine tons of cocaine and amphetamine are blasted by a superhero mixing in the air with bad guys (primarily evil workers of those factories).

Next scenes probably should show relieved from addiction happy faces of Americans who don’t need to pay thousands for drugs like Matt Gaetz have done as per U.S. House ethics committee released report and now they are “almost always” sober during their late-night — or, in some cases, very early morning — posting sessions on the Elon Musk’s social media platform X, just using medication ketamine.

Reality is much worse as usual. According to NCDAS org – “among Americans aged 12 years and older, 37.309 million were current illegal drug users (used within the last 30 days) as of 2020”. Those are consumers but there is also a wide spread distribution network within North America reliably delivering requested substances meeting various demands. How many we need to add to 37?

Is the real head of this Drugs Dragon in the narcotic’s providers like Mexico or China?

Or, it forms from the “heads” of those 37+ million who don’t see the valid reasons of not using drugs, especially when almost each Hollywood movie portraits some nice boys and girls inhaling, swallowing and injecting different kinds of “shit”. Sure, movies, as any art, reflect our life and environment. It is absurd to see polite and nice speaking gangs on the screens but why so many not related to the real life “happy ends”? Why so many sympathy to the criminals of different kinds? Why nice obituaries about those who died from drugs without earnest words that a person was just a junky, spreading drugs disease around to those who were younger and vulnerable to a person’s influence?

Hope that some thorough thoughts had come to D. Trump about the drugs disaster when he said for the first time on Sunday, Dec 22, 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona that he would launch “a new anti-drug advertising campaign to show the physical impact of taking drugs like fentanyl” (Reuters) in addition of just repeating his threat to designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations.

Why, in such case, do not designate drugs’ dealers and sellers as the murderers, whom they really are while slowly killing the personality and the soul of the addicts?