More News Stories

Lots of articles published in various media outlets that interested me over the past little while. I thought that I would let you know about them because you may find them interesting as well.

I have to admit that I have seen quite a bit over the last few days. I will post about as many of them as possible giving you my perspective on them. I hope that you find this interesting.

ALL THE MONEY ON EARTH

It is an amazing drawing that I saw on the Internet that you ought to take a look at now.  It is just one picture that you might want to see because it tells you so much about the Earth Economy:

"The $74 Trillion Global Economy in One Chart

It just shows you so magnificently how the 74 trillion dollars of wealth are distributed around this Earth.

Just so you know, Canada is number 10 for its GDF numbers on the list of nations! Here is how it was done:

"The latest GDP numbers from the World Bank were released earlier this month, and today’s visualization from HowMuch.net breaks them down to show the relative share of the global economy for each country.

The full circle, known as a Voronoi Diagram, represents the entirety of the $74 trillion global economy in nominal terms. Meanwhile, each country’s segment is sized accordingly to their percentage of global GDP output. Continents are also grouped together and sorted by color." (Visual Capitalist)

Interestingly to me, the Company that prepared this was Canadian, located in Vancouver:

"Visual Capitalist is a digital media brand that uses data, art, and storytelling to make complex issues more digestible for millions of investors around the world.

Our focus is on creating context around the global economy, business trends, technology, and investing."

CANADA IS #2

You might want to go and take a look at this article. Canada's position in this article is a lot higher than what I have seen usually about our country. 60 countries around the world are looked at to determine where a country is positioned.

Go to the Website and look into it what is provided to see if you are agreeable or not:

U.S. NEWS "BEST COUNTRIES"

Fascinating that Canada has done so well isn't it! The most interesting part is that this country is in the #1 position in "Quality of Life."

A TRILLION DOLLARS IN INFRASTRUCTURE SPENDING

Here is what the US President wants to do with all of that money. He said this in his Address to the Joint Session of Congress on February 28, 2017:

"If we are guided by the well-being of American citizens then I believe Republicans and Democrats can work together to achieve an outcome that has eluded our country for decades.

Another Republican President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, initiated the last truly great national infrastructure program --- the building of the interstate highway system. The time has come for a new program of national rebuilding…

To launch our national rebuilding, I will be asking the Congress to approve legislation that produces a $1 trillion investment in the infrastructure of the United States -- financed through both public and private capital --- creating millions of new jobs."

That sounds pretty impressive doesn't it. It is not just taxpayer money that will be spent but will include transactions involving private organizations as well who will be putting up big sums of money with the expectation that they will make some profits on it.

Could it be that this kind of a transaction could be used to build a new bridge between Windsor and Detroit? After all, to build what they, the American and Canadian Governments, want to do requires something of an amount between $4-$5 billion for their proposal assuming that legally they are entitled to do it in the first place.

I don't know about you, dear reader, but I cannot understand why anyone wants the Governments to build their bridge when I believe the Ambassador Bridge Company cost to build their 2nd bridge is in the area of $500 million. That is about in an 1/8th to 1/10th the cost of the Governments' bridge.  Why taxpayers have to spend so much more money seems absurd to me when there is a less expensive way to do so.

While this is pretty exciting reading, I really don't think that the American Governments  are going to spend that much money in infrastructure spending and certainly not that much to build a 2nd bridge between Canada and United States in our area. You, dear reader, certainly ought to take a look at this article that I read the other day:

"Despite Trump's Infrastructure Pledge, Governors Expect Little Federal Spending

(Stuart Leavenworth, Tribune News Service, February 28, 2017)

President Donald Trump said again Monday that he was preparing to spend big on infrastructure. But even as he spoke, administration officials and congressional leaders were telling governors to expect little new federal investment in roads, bridges, transit systems, dam repairs and other water works…

Yet despite his rhetoric, Trump appears to have little GOP support for a big-money federal jobs program. Ryan is opposed, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell _ a Republican from Kentucky and the spouse of Trump's transportation secretary, Elaine Chao _ has been cool to noncommittal. Both congressional leaders want to cut taxes and reduce federal spending and are philosophically opposed to economic stimulus programs. Former South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, head of the Heritage Foundation, has recently become an influential adviser to Trump, and his organization has been pressing the president to scale back dreams of big federal investment.

Ryan and some other Republicans seem open to using tax credits to spur private infrastructure work. Yet it is not yet clear how Congress would pay for those tax breaks and what process they'd use to select projects deserving of special treatment. Ryan has made clear that infrastructure decisions will need to wait until the spring, after Congress has had a chance to work on health care and tax revisions."

Of course, dealing with the Ambassador Bridge Company would be terrific for the US President. I am sure that he could do a deal with them to spend much less money than the Governments have suggested and the Company could spend most of the money on the Bridge construction as well.

Naturally, the President would take the credit for it.