Juggling Dynamite

I just finished reading The New Farm (2017) by Brent Preston, and highly recommend it.

Set close to my home, we know some of the characters in the book personally.  It’s a truly inspiring real-life tale about the world-shaping importance of the food we eat, grow and support.

The way we make money matters; the food we eat does too:

“Our conclusion, after all these years, is simple:  food is everything.  Food is the centre of all of the biggest, most important, most pressing challenges we face as a species.  Food is the unifying theory of all that is wrong in the world, but it is also the key to solving our biggest problems.”

The fentanyl plague, luxury sales, crazy real estate and heavily indebted households are all connected in Canada’s largest urban areas.  Finally, British Columbia has an Attorney General with the guts to clamp down.  Those who have been making money on the destructive circle are, understandably, not happy.  But it matters how we make money.  Allowing profits for some to continue at the destruction of the rest, is a nation-defeating way to operate. See Why Trump should be worried about Vancouver’s new crackdown on money laundering:

“We’ve linked [money laundering] to everything from being the Canadian center for overdoses deaths due to fentanyl, to being North America’s capital for luxury cars, to having one of the most out-of-control real estate markets… in not just North America but in the world.”  –BC Attorney General, David Eby

“Among the pieces of legislation now moving forward in British Columbia, as ThinkProgress previously reported, is the Land Owner Transparency Act, which would create a public database of beneficial owners behind the anonymous companies purchasing real estate — and skyrocketing costs — across the province. The planned registry could come online as soon as next year, peeling back the information on who has been snapping up luxury mansions and high-rise condos in and around Vancouver.”

We have been talking and writing about the macro forces driving the present downturn for a long time. The fix needed is far larger than finding a new trade deal between America and China.  Roubini articulates many of the key issues in the clip below.  Sticking heads in the sand and hoping for indefinite debt-fuelled expansion cycles is not a prudent financial strategy.

Nouriel Roubini, chief executive officer at Roubini Macro Associates, discusses the global economy, geopolitical risk, the U.S.-China trade negotiations, the possibility of a global recession, how he thinks we can avoid it, China’s economy and global debt.  Here is a direct video link.