25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports.

[dwy000]

5 minutes ago, cubsfan said:

 

It's my opinion that most of the country is fully behind him on the Border Security issue.

 

There are drugs and immigrants coming into the country from Canada, and it's increased a lot

the last 4 years.

 

But the bigger picture is this. The USA takes care of Canada's security needs. That's very clear.

 

So view Trump's trolling to Justin & future leaders as just that. Seal the border, keep it sealed.

And if there are unfair tariffs on US goods - expect retaliation. It's not like your spending $800B on your own defense.

 

 

What source are you using that shows the increase in drugs and immigrants from Canada?  

 

And the security issue is more the US protecting itself.  Canada doesn't have a whole lot of enemies and only shares a border with one country. 

Edited yesterday at 01:45 AM by dwy000

[cubsfan]

2 minutes ago, dwy000 said:

What source are you using that shows the increase in drugs and immigrants from Canada?  

 

And the security issue is more the US protecting itself.  Canada doesn't have a whole lot of enemies and only shares a border with one country. 

 

My grandson-in-law works for the ICE office in Burlington, VT. 

He keeps me well informed.

 

And if you do not need a Canadian military - you should save the money and shut it down.

You'll need it when you least expect it - just ask Poland.

[dwy000]

7 minutes ago, cubsfan said:

 

My grandson-in-law works for the ICE office in Burlington, VT. 

He keeps me well informed.

 

And if you do not need a Canadian military - you should save the money and shut it down.

You'll need it when you least expect it - just ask Poland.

While I don't question his view I'm not sure that's a broad enough source that we should be relying on to determine trade policy with our largest partner. 

 

The Canadian military is nominal already at best. 

 

What i love about this board is that when it comes to investing it is about the most intelligent, analytical and rational group I've been exposed to.  Nobody, even Buffett, gets a free pass and every decision is scrutinized and questioned and very often disagreed with - even if you think he's the greatest of all time. It confuses me that people aren't willing to do the same independent analysis on political moves.  You can still think Trump is the goat but legitimately question the rationale of decisions like this one. 

[cubsfan]

Amen to that.

[SharperDingaan]

Different PoV ....

 

Trump is currently at his most able; but with every passing month, he grows progressively weaker, and at an accelerating rate. Same as an option, or a melting ice-cube, time works against him. The US ship of state is massive, it doesn't turn on a dime, and disruption generates consequences that have to be overcome. The mystery is whether the Orange Man drowns in the disruption, or becomes senile, before actually reaching the end of his term. Opportunities.

 

Forced deportation sounds great .... until you actually see it. Last time out it was immigrant children held in warehouses, in cages; alternatively, if you don't like the warehouses it's tent cities, that look a lot like 2nd/3rd world refugee camps. Trade partners will gladly publish stats evidencing that they are doing what they said they would do; but ... hey bud! .... why didn't you turn back the thousands of illegals trying to flee into Canada from the US?, and why didn't you reduce YOUR illegal drugs and gun flow this month? ..... you don't do your share .... why should we do ours? Opportunities.

 

Lot's of 'idea's' people around Trump .... but grinders? not so much. Do we really think that the tech mavens are still there in 6-months, or is it more likely that they've moved on? 'Cause if you do ..... they are also melting ice-cubes, and melting a lot faster than everyone else. Opportunities.

 

Change is not a bad thing ... but ability declines rapidly. Option opportunities.

 

SD

 

 

 

[cwericb]

Here is how Andrew Coyne summed up the situation:

 

Andrew Coyne, pulling no punches, on the incoming US administration: 

 

“Nothing mattered, in the end. Not the probable dementia, the unfathomable ignorance, the emotional incontinence; not, certainly, the shambling, hate-filled campaign, or the ludicrously unworkable anti-policies. 

 

The candidate out on bail in four jurisdictions, the convicted fraud artist, the adjudicated rapist and serial sexual predator, the habitual bankrupt, the stooge of Vladimir Putin, the man who tried to overturn the last election and all of his creepy retinue of crooks, ideologues and lunatics: Americans took a long look at all this and said, yes please. 

 

There is no sense in understating the depth of the disaster. This is a crisis like no other in our lifetimes. The government of the United States has been delivered into the hands of a gangster, whose sole purpose in running, besides staying out of jail, is to seek revenge on his enemies. The damage Donald Trump and his nihilist cronies can do – to America, but also to its democratic allies, and to the peace and security of the world – is incalculable. We are living in the time of Nero. 

 

The first six months will be a time of maximum peril. NATO must from this moment be considered effectively obsolete, without the American security guarantee that has always been its bedrock. We may see new incursions by Russia into Europe – the poor Ukrainians are probably done for, but now it is the Baltics and the Poles who must worry – before the Europeans have time to organize an alternative. China may also accelerate its Taiwanese ambitions. 

 

At home, Mr. Trump will be moving swiftly to consolidate his power. Some of this will be institutional – the replacement of tens of thousands of career civil servants with Trumpian loyalists. But some of it will be … atmospheric. 

 

At some point someone – a company whose chief executive has displeased him, a media critic who has gotten under his skin – will find themselves the subject of unwanted attention from the Trump administration. It might not be so crude as a police arrest. It might just be a little regulatory matter, a tax audit, something like that. They will seek the protection of the courts, and find it is not there. 

 

The judges are also Trump loyalists, perhaps, or too scared to confront him. Or they might issue a ruling, and find it has no effect – that the administration has called the basic bluff of liberal democracy: the idea that, in the crunch, people in power agree to be bound by the law, and by its instruments the courts, the same as everyone else. Then everyone will take their cue. Executives will line up to court him. Media organizations, the large ones anyway, will find reasons to be cheerful. 

 

Of course, in reality things will start to fall apart fairly quickly. The huge across-the-board tariffs he imposes will tank the world economy. The massive deficits, fuelled by his ill-judged tax policies – he won’t replace the income tax, as he promised, but will fill it with holes – and monetized, at his direction, by the Federal Reserve, will ignite a new round of inflation. 

 

Most of all, the insane project of deporting 12 million undocumented immigrants – finding them, rounding them up and detaining them in hundreds of internment camps around the country, probably for years, before doing so – will consume his administration. But by then it will be too late. 

 

We should not count upon the majority of Americans coming to their senses in any event. They were not able to see Mr. Trump for what he was before: why should that change? Would they not, rather, be further coarsened by the experience of seeing their neighbours dragged off by the police, or the military, further steeled to the necessity of doing “tough things” to “restore order?” 

 

Some won’t, of course. But they will find in time that the democratic levers they might once have pulled to demand change are no longer attached to anything. There are still elections, but the rules have been altered: there are certain obstacles, certain disadvantages if you are not with the party of power. It will seem easier at first to try to change things from within. Then it will be easier not to change things. 

 

All of this will wash over Canada in various ways – some predictable, like the flood of refugees seeking escape from the camps; some less so, like the coarsening of our own politics, the debasement of morals and norms by politicians who have discovered there is no political price to be paid for it. And who will have the backing of their patron in Washington. 

 

All my life I have been an admirer of the United States and its people. But I am frightened of it now, and I am even more frightened of them. 

 

Written by Andrew Coyne” 

 

[cubsfan]

8 minutes ago, cwericb said:

Here is how Andrew Coyne summed up the situation:

 

Andrew Coyne, pulling no punches, on the incoming US administration: 

 

“Nothing mattered, in the end. Not the probable dementia, the unfathomable ignorance, the emotional incontinence; not, certainly, the shambling, hate-filled campaign, or the ludicrously unworkable anti-policies. 

 

The candidate out on bail in four jurisdictions, the convicted fraud artist, the adjudicated rapist and serial sexual predator, the habitual bankrupt, the stooge of Vladimir Putin, the man who tried to overturn the last election and all of his creepy retinue of crooks, ideologues and lunatics: Americans took a long look at all this and said, yes please. 

 

There is no sense in understating the depth of the disaster. This is a crisis like no other in our lifetimes. The government of the United States has been delivered into the hands of a gangster, whose sole purpose in running, besides staying out of jail, is to seek revenge on his enemies. The damage Donald Trump and his nihilist cronies can do – to America, but also to its democratic allies, and to the peace and security of the world – is incalculable. We are living in the time of Nero. 

 

The first six months will be a time of maximum peril. NATO must from this moment be considered effectively obsolete, without the American security guarantee that has always been its bedrock. We may see new incursions by Russia into Europe – the poor Ukrainians are probably done for, but now it is the Baltics and the Poles who must worry – before the Europeans have time to organize an alternative. China may also accelerate its Taiwanese ambitions. 

 

At home, Mr. Trump will be moving swiftly to consolidate his power. Some of this will be institutional – the replacement of tens of thousands of career civil servants with Trumpian loyalists. But some of it will be … atmospheric. 

 

At some point someone – a company whose chief executive has displeased him, a media critic who has gotten under his skin – will find themselves the subject of unwanted attention from the Trump administration. It might not be so crude as a police arrest. It might just be a little regulatory matter, a tax audit, something like that. They will seek the protection of the courts, and find it is not there. 

 

The judges are also Trump loyalists, perhaps, or too scared to confront him. Or they might issue a ruling, and find it has no effect – that the administration has called the basic bluff of liberal democracy: the idea that, in the crunch, people in power agree to be bound by the law, and by its instruments the courts, the same as everyone else. Then everyone will take their cue. Executives will line up to court him. Media organizations, the large ones anyway, will find reasons to be cheerful. 

 

Of course, in reality things will start to fall apart fairly quickly. The huge across-the-board tariffs he imposes will tank the world economy. The massive deficits, fuelled by his ill-judged tax policies – he won’t replace the income tax, as he promised, but will fill it with holes – and monetized, at his direction, by the Federal Reserve, will ignite a new round of inflation. 

 

Most of all, the insane project of deporting 12 million undocumented immigrants – finding them, rounding them up and detaining them in hundreds of internment camps around the country, probably for years, before doing so – will consume his administration. But by then it will be too late. 

 

We should not count upon the majority of Americans coming to their senses in any event. They were not able to see Mr. Trump for what he was before: why should that change? Would they not, rather, be further coarsened by the experience of seeing their neighbours dragged off by the police, or the military, further steeled to the necessity of doing “tough things” to “restore order?” 

 

Some won’t, of course. But they will find in time that the democratic levers they might once have pulled to demand change are no longer attached to anything. There are still elections, but the rules have been altered: there are certain obstacles, certain disadvantages if you are not with the party of power. It will seem easier at first to try to change things from within. Then it will be easier not to change things. 

 

All of this will wash over Canada in various ways – some predictable, like the flood of refugees seeking escape from the camps; some less so, like the coarsening of our own politics, the debasement of morals and norms by politicians who have discovered there is no political price to be paid for it. And who will have the backing of their patron in Washington. 

 

All my life I have been an admirer of the United States and its people. But I am frightened of it now, and I am even more frightened of them. 

 

Written by Andrew Coyne” 

 

 

Oh my god, that is beautiful.  

Another holier-than-thou lecture by a flake journalist. Hilarious.

 

Is his hair on fire??

[Buckeye]

25 minutes ago, cubsfan said:

 

Oh my god, that is beautiful.  

Another holier-than-thou lecture by a flake journalist. Hilarious.

 

Is his hair on fire??

[maplevalue]

14 hours ago, gary17 said:

there's a nice CBC  piece by Andrew Cheng that talks about whether Trump has some valid concerns about drugs from Canada -   Canadians should watch

 

basically it's like COVID testing, you don't test, there are no cases.

 

no policing, so nobody's getting caught.   It's that simple.   Liberals are gaslighting Canadians that 

 

I believe you are referring to the below video.

 

 

Agree 100% with you. Naive to think there is no problem at the Canadian border. The big point that is mentioned is you can get into Canada with effectively no background check if you come as a student. In the video they talk about this case of someone who was plotting a terrorist attack in the US was in Canada on a student visa: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/muhammad-shahzeb-khan-terror-new-york-ormstown-1.7322700.

[cubsfan]

2 hours ago, maplevalue said:

 

I believe you are referring to the below video.

 

 

Agree 100% with you. Naive to think there is no problem at the Canadian border. The big point that is mentioned is you can get into Canada with effectively no background check if you come as a student. In the video they talk about this case of someone who was plotting a terrorist attack in the US was in Canada on a student visa: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/muhammad-shahzeb-khan-terror-new-york-ormstown-1.7322700.

 

Seems like a very balanced view, learned a lot. Thanks.

 

I didn't realize the Swanton Sector is where the most activity is based, so my grandson-in-law was right about the dramatic rise and why ICE has been so overwhelmed there.

[SharperDingaan]

On 1/10/2025 at 5:15 PM, SharperDingaan said:

A lot (BTC-ETF) more than we would prefer; 50%+ of our equity holdings plus a bunch more in our fixed income.

 

Sold our additional BTC-ETF over the last few days, and have a swing trade on the remaining core BTC-ETF. Rather think that Trump screwed the pooch with the $TRUMP dump, and that it will take a while to restore confidence in BTC.

 

In the meantime .... a pile of cash looking to return to o/g, on a threatening tweet 

 

SD  

[Gregmal]

4 hours ago, cwericb said:

Here is how Andrew Coyne summed up the situation:

 

Andrew Coyne, pulling no punches, on the incoming US administration: 

 

“Nothing mattered, in the end. Not the probable dementia, the unfathomable ignorance, the emotional incontinence; not, certainly, the shambling, hate-filled campaign, or the ludicrously unworkable anti-policies. 

 

The candidate out on bail in four jurisdictions, the convicted fraud artist, the adjudicated rapist and serial sexual predator, the habitual bankrupt, the stooge of Vladimir Putin, the man who tried to overturn the last election and all of his creepy retinue of crooks, ideologues and lunatics: Americans took a long look at all this and said, yes please. 

 

There is no sense in understating the depth of the disaster. This is a crisis like no other in our lifetimes. The government of the United States has been delivered into the hands of a gangster, whose sole purpose in running, besides staying out of jail, is to seek revenge on his enemies. The damage Donald Trump and his nihilist cronies can do – to America, but also to its democratic allies, and to the peace and security of the world – is incalculable. We are living in the time of Nero. 

 

The first six months will be a time of maximum peril. NATO must from this moment be considered effectively obsolete, without the American security guarantee that has always been its bedrock. We may see new incursions by Russia into Europe – the poor Ukrainians are probably done for, but now it is the Baltics and the Poles who must worry – before the Europeans have time to organize an alternative. China may also accelerate its Taiwanese ambitions. 

 

At home, Mr. Trump will be moving swiftly to consolidate his power. Some of this will be institutional – the replacement of tens of thousands of career civil servants with Trumpian loyalists. But some of it will be … atmospheric. 

 

At some point someone – a company whose chief executive has displeased him, a media critic who has gotten under his skin – will find themselves the subject of unwanted attention from the Trump administration. It might not be so crude as a police arrest. It might just be a little regulatory matter, a tax audit, something like that. They will seek the protection of the courts, and find it is not there. 

 

The judges are also Trump loyalists, perhaps, or too scared to confront him. Or they might issue a ruling, and find it has no effect – that the administration has called the basic bluff of liberal democracy: the idea that, in the crunch, people in power agree to be bound by the law, and by its instruments the courts, the same as everyone else. Then everyone will take their cue. Executives will line up to court him. Media organizations, the large ones anyway, will find reasons to be cheerful. 

 

Of course, in reality things will start to fall apart fairly quickly. The huge across-the-board tariffs he imposes will tank the world economy. The massive deficits, fuelled by his ill-judged tax policies – he won’t replace the income tax, as he promised, but will fill it with holes – and monetized, at his direction, by the Federal Reserve, will ignite a new round of inflation. 

 

Most of all, the insane project of deporting 12 million undocumented immigrants – finding them, rounding them up and detaining them in hundreds of internment camps around the country, probably for years, before doing so – will consume his administration. But by then it will be too late. 

 

We should not count upon the majority of Americans coming to their senses in any event. They were not able to see Mr. Trump for what he was before: why should that change? Would they not, rather, be further coarsened by the experience of seeing their neighbours dragged off by the police, or the military, further steeled to the necessity of doing “tough things” to “restore order?” 

 

Some won’t, of course. But they will find in time that the democratic levers they might once have pulled to demand change are no longer attached to anything. There are still elections, but the rules have been altered: there are certain obstacles, certain disadvantages if you are not with the party of power. It will seem easier at first to try to change things from within. Then it will be easier not to change things. 

 

All of this will wash over Canada in various ways – some predictable, like the flood of refugees seeking escape from the camps; some less so, like the coarsening of our own politics, the debasement of morals and norms by politicians who have discovered there is no political price to be paid for it. And who will have the backing of their patron in Washington. 

 

All my life I have been an admirer of the United States and its people. But I am frightened of it now, and I am even more frightened of them. 

 

Written by Andrew Coyne” 

 

I absolutely enjoy reading things like this and watching people on TV say things like this because 1) it continues to erode the little remaining trust anyone has in MSM(the consequences of their actions), and 2) if the authors are not lying, it is wholly rewarding to me, to see these people "frightened" by the fact that they've internalized all the sensational nonsense they've pedaled hook, line, and sinker. In a way, it poetic and its accountability at its best. They fabricated and then bought into all this lunacy for so long, that they are now suffering in terms of quality of life because of it. Thats awesome. 

[50centdollars]

3 hours ago, maplevalue said:

 

I believe you are referring to the below video.

 

 

Agree 100% with you. Naive to think there is no problem at the Canadian border. The big point that is mentioned is you can get into Canada with effectively no background check if you come as a student. In the video they talk about this case of someone who was plotting a terrorist attack in the US was in Canada on a student visa: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/muhammad-shahzeb-khan-terror-new-york-ormstown-1.7322700.

I have a friend that recently retired from the RCMP. He was on the anti-terrorist task force. He told me that many people are not screened at our border. People come from war torn countries with no passports, get waived in. He said the border agents had such high quotas the past two years that they had no time to screen people. I'm surprised that a terrorist attack hasn't occurred in Canada. It would be easy to do. 

[cubsfan]

^^^ Makes you wonder, why would PM Trudeau hide this information from the citizens??

 

Oh, yeah, that's what Biden did here..

 

It's a very effective and brilliant tactic - then they can just call you a liar and brand you a racist.

[cwericb]

24 minutes ago, cubsfan said:

^^^ Makes you wonder, why would PM Trudeau hide this information from the citizens??

 

Oh, yeah, that's what Biden did here..

 

It's a very effective and brilliant tactic - then they can just call you a liar and brand you a racist.

 

Too many people give Trudeau way too much credit. He is simply not that smart. He is a former drama teacher that happens to look good, is well spoken , and is well connected. Doesn't mean he is any great thinker.

[cubsfan]

6 hours ago, cwericb said:

 

Too many people give Trudeau way too much credit. He is simply not that smart. He is a former drama teacher that happens to look good, is well spoken , and is well connected. Doesn't mean he is any great thinker.

 

@cwericb Nice to find common ground cw, he's a loser, just like Biden. Things will get better with stronger leadership.

[gfp]

i had always assumed the next leader would be that Carney guy from the Brookfield board of directors that was head of the central bank in Canada and UK, but I’m here, still stuck in Mexico, with a bunch of Canadians cause apparently they all come here when it’s cold, and they are all going to vote for this Poilievre conservative candidate. I had four or five different people tell me how smart he is, torments interviewers with his intellect, etc…. So if the Canadians in Mexico drinking heavily straw poll is to be trusted it will be Poilievre 

 

[bizaro86]

2 hours ago, gfp said:

i had always assumed the next leader would be that Carney guy from the Brookfield board of directors that was head of the central bank in Canada and UK, but I’m here, still stuck in Mexico, with a bunch of Canadians cause apparently they all come here when it’s cold, and they are all going to vote for this Poilievre conservative candidate. I had four or five different people tell me how smart he is, torments interviewers with his intellect, etc…. So if the Canadians in Mexico drinking heavily straw poll is to be trusted it will be Poilievre 

 

 

Which part of Mexico are you in? Pacific coast (eg Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, Cabo) would be majority Western Canadians who are way more likely to vote Conservative (blue provinces). I also think the demographics of people who would be in Mexico right now (older, better off) are more likely to vote Conservative.