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speculation

Saturday April 21, 2017

April 21, 2017 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday April 21, 2017

Speculation Swirls Around Kathleen Wynne

Premier Kathleen Wynne is slapping a 15 per cent “non-resident speculation” tax on foreign investors to help cool down southern Ontario’s scorching real estate market, the Star has learned.

March 29, 2017

Wynne will join Finance Minister Charles Sousa and Housing Minister Chris Ballard on Thursday against a backdrop of condo towers in booming Liberty Village to launch a massive plan to improve housing affordability.

A key plank in that would be the 15 per cent surcharge on offshore speculators, who are estimated to make up just 5 per cent of the current market.

Modelled on British Columbia’s “foreign buyers’ tax” in Vancouver, the levy would apply to home purchasers in the so-called Greater Golden Horseshoe who are not citizens or permanent residents.

November 3, 2016

It would affect sales in and around the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, Niagara, Kitchener-Waterloo, and encompass everywhere north to Barrie and Orillia and east to Peterborough. (Source: Toronto Star) 

Meanwhile, Speculation about whether Premier Kathleen Wynne can continue to lead the governing Liberals is at a f‎ever pitch.

Party stalwarts are hoping next week’s balanced ‎budget from Finance Minister Charles Sousa will tip the scal

September 9, 2016

es for Wynne’s teetering political fortunes.

But with public and private polling showing the Liberals languishing in third place well behind the Progressive Conservatives and the New Democrats — even after Wynne’s 25 per cent cut in residential electricity rates — there is mounting uncertainty she will remain at the helm.

The Ontario Liberal Party’s chief fundraiser, Zak Bailey, has quietly resigned just seven months into a job made even more challenging by campaign finance reforms triggered by a Star series last year.

“You’d have to ask the party what their plans are,” Bailey said Monday, declining further comment. (Source: Toronto Star) 

 

Posted in: Ontario Tagged: betting, bubble, housing, Kathleen Wynne, odds, Ontario, punter, real estate, resignation, speculation, speculator

Wednesday March 29, 2017

March 28, 2017 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday March 29, 2017

Housing affordability measures will be in spring budget: Ontario Finance Minister

Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa confirmed Monday he plans to include housing affordability measures in his upcoming budget.

Premier Kathleen Wynne has said her government is working on a “comprehensive set of plans,” to deal with rising home prices in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA), as well as rising rental rates.

Sousa said he’d like to include those plans in the spring budget.

There is a “suite of options” available to Ontario, but the province must be careful to avoid “unintended consequences” from those measures, he said.

Sousa also spoke about pressures on both the supply and demand side of the GTHA housing market.

“Demand is high for a number of factors,” he said. “Could be speculators, could be people from outside the country, it could very well be the many who are now moving into Ontario creating that demand.”

“The degree of supply is in question and how to expedite that is also something we’re trying to address,” he added.

The housing package in the budget will concern the red-hot housing market in the GTHA, while taking into account different circumstances in the rest of the province, Sousa said. (Source: Globe & Mail) 

 

Posted in: Ontario Tagged: bananas, bubble, buyers, foreign, housing, Kathleen Wynne, monkeys, Ontario, real estate, speculation

Tuesday January 10, 2017

January 10, 2017 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator Ð Tuesday January 10, 2017 WhoÕs patiently waiting for Trump? The US President-elect Donald Trump has admitted that he likes to keep people guessing. HeÕs a master manipulator as his book The Art of the Deal proudly portrays. ÒYou tell a lie three times, they will believe anything. You tell people what they want to hear, play to their fantasies and then you close the deal,Ó he wrote. It worked like a dream during the campaign. In less than two weeks, his biggest deal of all will finally be sealed. Only then will Americans and world leaders be able to distinguish between Trump the showman and the real deal of a man, who, according to some of his closest friends, is a charming, charismatic bon-vivant and a genuine patriot. Without doubt many of those who perceive Trump as a saviour are in for a disappointment. His reach-out to veterans was overwhelmingly successful, but his plan to privatise veteransÕ health care has dampened their enthusiasm. His vow to get coal miners back to work, which helped him win Pennsylvania and Ohio, has been made harder to keep thanks to President Barack ObamaÕs parting regulatory shot and the fact that coal production is no longer economically viable due to cheaper oil and natural gas. Moreover, if heÕs serious about imposing up to 45 per cent tariffs on Chinese imports to protect American manufacturers, that will not only result in inflation impacting the working class, but could incur World Trade Organisation penalties and kick-off a trade war that experts assert China is best-placed to win. Likewise, the governments of Canada and Mexico wait to see if Trump is serious about either renegotiating or dumping North American Free Trade Agreement. Canada says it would be willing to renegotiate terms. Mexico has flatly refused. On the foreign policy front, heads of state are breathlessly waiting to know the score in the realisation that what Trump says now and what he will do are

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday January 10, 2017

Who’s patiently waiting for Trump?

The US President-elect Donald Trump has admitted that he likes to keep people guessing. He’s a master manipulator as his book The Art of the Deal proudly portrays. “You tell a lie three times, they will believe anything. You tell people what they want to hear, play to their fantasies and then you close the deal,” he wrote. It worked like a dream during the campaign.

In less than two weeks, his biggest deal of all will finally be sealed. Only then will Americans and world leaders be able to distinguish between Trump the showman and the real deal of a man, who, according to some of his closest friends, is a charming, charismatic bon-vivant and a genuine patriot.

Without doubt many of those who perceive Trump as a saviour are in for a disappointment. His reach-out to veterans was overwhelmingly successful, but his plan to privatise veterans’ health care has dampened their enthusiasm.

His vow to get coal miners back to work, which helped him win Pennsylvania and Ohio, has been made harder to keep thanks to President Barack Obama’s parting regulatory shot and the fact that coal production is no longer economically viable due to cheaper oil and natural gas. Moreover, if he’s serious about imposing up to 45 per cent tariffs on Chinese imports to protect American manufacturers, that will not only result in inflation impacting the working class, but could incur World Trade Organisation penalties and kick-off a trade war that experts assert China is best-placed to win. Likewise, the governments of Canada and Mexico wait to see if Trump is serious about either renegotiating or dumping North American Free Trade Agreement. Canada says it would be willing to renegotiate terms. Mexico has flatly refused.

On the foreign policy front, heads of state are breathlessly waiting to know the score in the realisation that what Trump says now and what he will do are two different things. In this connection, President Vladimir Putin of Russia springs to mind.

Putin hopes for a reset in relations between Moscow and Washington, which he blames Obama for souring. Putin feels that his nation has been disrespected by the US in recent years and he wants to work with the new White House to resolve international crises provided the US sanctions are lifted and Russia is placed on an equal footing.

Signs are that he may get his wish; at least in the short term; that’s if Trump can skilfully manoeuvre between opening a new chapter with Russia — moving on — as he put it, with the hawkish anti-Russian sentiments expressed by senior figures in his own party. There is little divergence between the two men’s policies on Syria. Both see the need for eliminating terrorist elements and Trump has in the past referred to Syria’s President Bashar Al Assad as “a natural ally” in the fight against Daesh.

Trump tends to gravitate towards strongmen, and may be inclined to support Putin’s pick to head Libya, General Khalifa Haftar, whose forces have wrested back territory, including oil ports, from the control of Daesh, the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Trump’s senior security adviser James Woolsey says his boss will make the destruction of Daesh a priority, including in Libya.

However, despite what’s touted by the mainstream media as a Trump-Putin ‘bromance’, cracks in their tentatively friendly relationship could show-up once the US and Russian interests diverge. If there comes a time when those two massive egos clash, prepare for … well … anything. China could be a point of contention and so could Iran given Trump’s hostility to the nuclear deal.

There is arguably no one salivating more at the thought of Trump getting his feet under his new desk than the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump slammed Obama’s decision not to veto a recent UN resolution reaffirming the illegality of colony construction which he believes constitutes no obstacle to peace, and has given his approval for the US embassy to be relocated to Jerusalem.

Yet, he has also sworn to effect an Israel-Palestinian peace agreement, he characterises as “the ultimate deal” — and he has appointed Jason Greenblatt, a real estate lawyer and former Israeli West Bank colonist and armed guard to begin the process!

It’s not clear what British Prime Minister Theresa May really thinks of Trump. But she definitely wants to get in his good graces. She broke the ‘special relationship’s unwritten rule with her condemnation of John Kerry for a speech in which he criticises Israeli colonies as an obstacle to a two-state solution, even though his words echoed Britain’s long-held position.

Let’s not forget that among the cheerers and appeasers waiting for January 20th to dawn, there are millions of Americans, among them American-Muslims and undocumented migrants, living in terror of what the future might hold if Trump implements his campaign threats.

Uncertainty has become the new normal. The day Trump comes clean on his actual policies, strategies and global friends lists can’t come soon enough! (Source: GulfNews) 

 

Posted in: International, USA Tagged: airport, conjecture, Donald Trump, globe, International, speculation, takeoff, USA, waiting, world

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This website contains satirical commentaries of current events going back several decades. Some readers may not share this sense of humour nor the opinions expressed by the artist. To understand editorial cartoons it is important to understand their effectiveness as a counterweight to power. It is presumed readers approach satire with a broad minded foundation and healthy knowledge of objective facts of the subjects depicted.

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