Shopping for meat, the weak economy and MAGA Mark...
Plus, podcasting from Israel, or with people in Israel.
There is a trend I’ve been noticing for while at the grocery store, in the meat counter specifically. The cuts of meat on offer are smaller than they used to be and the cuts on offer tend to be the cheaper ones.
That hit home today as I was looking for something specific.
Every once in a while I like to treat myself to a good, home cooked steak. I find one nice big steak and it feeds both of us, normally with a bit left over.
Good luck trying to find that right now.
If you do find a decent cut of steak in stock, they are paper thin. I was at a Farm Boy on Saturday morning and they advertised T-Bone steaks on sale, but they were cut about as thin as a fast fry steak, maybe a bit bigger than a quarter inch.
They are doing that to keep the price on the sticker at an acceptable level.
The grocery stores aren’t stocking better or thicker cuts because people aren’t buying them. Consumers have been adjusting their grocery habits for some time now to deal with the cost of living, and who can blame them.
As I noted in my Toronto Sun column on the state of Canada’s economy, while inflation has cooled, food inflation remains a persistent issue and some things have really spiked.
Tomatoes up 20.9% compared to a year earlier while coffee is up 15.5%, beef is up 12.5%, carrots are up 10.5%, and pork is up 9.4%.
Getting gas at $1.64 a litre this week was a comparative bargain when in reality, it is a rip off compared to a year ago.
Speaking of a recession…
Do you know what the difference is between a recession and a technical recession?
The latter requires a Liberal to be in power for the media to believe it and repeat it without question.
Back during the 2015 election, when growth rates in GDP were similar to now, the media went out of their way to declare Canada in a recession. Now most of them want to go to great lengths to explain to you that the country isn’t in a recession, just a technical recession and besides they might change and update the latest GDP numbers anyway.
Doesn’t matter how you slice it, our economy isn’t doing well.
That was the larger point of my most recent Sun column. We have two quarters where the economy is shrinking - a recession, plus higher unemployment, increasing bankruptcies, out of control food inflation, high gas prices.
Things are not good.
Carney lovers don’t care though, they are the new TruAnon, the people who think their leader can do no wrong. Here’s some of the reaction to my Sun column on X.
Facts may not care about your feelings, but for these folks their feelings really don’t care about facts.
The weak fundamentals in Canada’s economy aren’t helped by Trump and his tariffs, but he didn’t cause those weak fundamentals. these folks don’t see that, they just see Orange Man Bad and Carney as their saviour.
MAGA Mark was a real surprise…
I really wasn’t expecting Mark Carney to be putting on a red baseball cap.
Yet there was Carney in New York City, at the Economic Club, calling for Canada to help Make America Great Again!
This wasn’t an off the cuff comment, this was planned, these comments were written down in the prepared remarks provided to journalists ahead of time.
Now, in my view, this is good messaging for Carney to take to an American audience. It’s just that it goes against his talk of rupture, of hegemons, of the old relationship being over.
It’s the same with his comments about Fortress North America.
Fortress North America is what Doug Ford has been calling for over the past 18 months.
Ford has called for deeper integration and cooperation and the common economic foe known as China. Carney has called for moving away from the USA and getting closer to China.
This man is a chameleon. No one really knows what Mark Carney thinks or believes, including it appears, Carney himself.
Podcasting from Israel…
I talked about much of this on the Kinsellacast. Warren Kinsella is in Israel for the screening of his new film The Campaign, at the Tel Aviv International Documentary Film Festival.
I’ve seen the film, it’s very good and will be shown in Canada soon.
If you want to listen, I show up after the 25 minute mark.
Also, if you want to check out Warren’s best selling book, it came out last month and is onto a second printing I believe.
“This man is a chameleon. No one really knows what Mark Carney thinks or believes, including it appears, Carney himself.”
Like a chameleon, the goal is survival. Prime Minister Carney will be anything to anyone.
He is a continental integrationist, and he is a bootlicker of global hegemons.
He is an intellectual coward, and a go-along-to-get-along anti-leader who craves applause and accolades.
His deceitful, he cannot be trusted, and he seeks accommodation and false harmony.
He promises anything to everyone- think of First Nations vetos and BC vetos for interprovincial pipelines- yet assures the citizens of our natural resource producing Provinces that he has their respective backs.
He assures all who will listen, that if we just agree with him, we can have everything we want.
Do as I say, not as I do.
And we fell for it again.
We have fallen for the ruse, and we have bought the myth.
“The True North, Strong and Free.
Where the less you know,
The better off you’ll be.”
(Paraphrased from Warren Zevon)
One of the biggest problems in Canada is that we are governed by politicians who care more about feelings than they do about facts. Sadly, it works and they get voted in again and again. We need a government who can make some tough decisions such as abolishing the CBC, cutting foreign aid, cancelling the gun buyback program, etc.
"Facts can be ignored, but their consequences cannot be escaped."
Thomas Sowell