A Crisis of Credibility

Credibility. Credibility is what's necessary to have the moral authority to govern or even to be believed and taken seriously what-so-ever. A person's credibility is built (depending on what they are credible on) by having a track record of credible acts. A lack of credibility leads to a lack of confidence, not just in the person but also in any institutions they are affiliated with.

When the credibility of governments and their institutions comes into question it's a timber box just waiting to explode. Once an institution becomes corrupt it rarely, if never, can correct itself from the top down and instead tends to either destroy itself and possibly rebuilt from the ground up. During this time of rebuilding, power is up for grabs by anyone "good" or "bad", "foreign" or "domestic". The rise and fall of empires, the beginning and end of civilizations.

Historically, when civilizations or even organizations have collapsed, it's due to a lack of cohesion and rampant corruption. Whether this pattern emerges due to simple greed or a deeper sickness I can not say. A loss of morality in all cases seems to be the result and a dog eat dog mentality takes hold.

Alberta's Budget Woes

Horner issues warning on finances.

The Redford government has a contingency plan in its back pocket - one that includes departmental spending cuts - should oil prices continue to float below budget estimates, the provincial finance minister said Monday.
Doug Horner said prognosticators such as the Conference Board of Canada say the long-term economic picture for Alberta remains sound, but in the short term, energy prices are volatile.

"The short term". "Just a few months". The dangling carrot lives on. The volatility isn't going to be short term, and it's only going to get worse. Alberta's oil industry is trapped in the small window between the cost of production and the affordability of consumers. Their model is dated, based on the patterns oil demonstrated before we crossed the $100.00 barrier for the very first time.

It's worse than that though however, because to have confidence in market performance one must make the assumption the market is not rigged. Hey, politicians - are you not noticing that every single fucking thing you are making bets on is rigged? Nothing is going to normalize until we address that elephant in the room and your future bets are not winning either.

The elephant won't be addressed though because those that would address it are themselves elephants that need addressing. Albertans really need to stop drinking the koolaid and start taking our economic predicament seriously.

Although this isn't the only koolaid being served up today now is it? The Canadian Wheat Board "monopoly" was dismantled in the name of "international trade" and just in time to join other agricultural deregulation due to the T.P.P.

The "free market" was cited as the triumphant winner which is strange considering all of the recent evidence that price discovery is being heavily manipulated, LIBOR, Drug Laundering, Terrorism - take your pick. There is no free market, its a cartel market - and do you really think commodities such as wheat are not subject to the same manipulation. Our small farmers will now have to compete with large, unaccountable, industrial agriculture. The companies they will now be competing against seek to be real international monopolies, they are predatory. I anticipate many buyouts coming of Canadian farms by foreign international corporations whose friends in the banking industry are rigging commodity prices and currency values.

To put a cherry on top Stephen Harper has today arbitrarily announced he apparently has the power to pardon. Of course he doesn't - but in light of all this other corruption why not give it a whirl right? It's not like accountability actually exists for the modern royalty.

Who can grant or issue a pardon/record suspension? The Parole Board of Canada (PBC) has exclusive jurisdiction to grant, refuse to grant or to revoke a pardon/record suspension. The law that governs pardons/record suspensions is known as the Criminal Records Act (CRA). The Criminal Records Act provides for the relief of persons who have been convicted of offences and have subsequently rehabilitated themselves.

With the market corruption, and political corruption comes budget cuts and angry mobs, leading to instability in infrastructure itself.

There just isn't really any credibility left in much of what any of these officials are promising. It's unrealistic and quite honestly it just amazes me that after four years of constant lies, failed predictions, "jobless recovery", and rampant corruption that people still even consider what those in charge have to say about the given situation.

Harvard Study Finds Fluoride Lowers IQ - Published in Federal Gov't Journal

Remember WMDs? As in, remember those WMDs which never actually existed? Remember how sickening it made you feel when Bush lied? So where is that response today? Where is the antiwar movement now? "Foreign Policy Experts", including a representative from the RAND corporation came out today "urging" the U.S. to intervene in Syria. It's funny, because you can bet they know full well that the U.S. is already intervening.

President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing U.S. support for rebels seeking to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government, U.S. sources familiar with the matter said.
Obama's order, approved earlier this year and known as an intelligence "finding," broadly permits the CIA and other U.S. agencies to provide support that could help the rebels oust Assad.

Civil War my ass. This is a western lead CIA coup against Assad and a preliminary proxy war to World War III as I eluded to in my last post. The U.N. General Assembly also asked Assad to step down today, ironically lobbied for by western allies Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. The still recent lies of Libya further cast a corrupt shadow over the whole affair.

In other news, a sexual assault G20 lawsuit was filed today. Credibility? We don't need no stinking credibility. Do we?

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Richard Fantin is a self-taught software developer who has mostly throughout his career focused on financial applications and high frequency trading. He currently works for CenturyLink

Nazayh Zanidean is a Project Coordinator for a mid-sized construction contractor in Calgary, Alberta. He enjoys writing as a hobby on topics that include foreign policy, international human rights, security and systemic media bias.