Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
You can place all sorts of bets on the super bowl at Caesars Palace...
https://www.oddsshark.com/casino/vegas/caesars-palace
Alberta: Our 51st state?
By Peter Skurkiss
Alberta as our 51st state is not as far-fetched as it sounds at first blush. The idea was written about by Peter Zeihan in Accidental Superpower (2014) and recently broached by Holman Jenkins, Jr. in no less than the Wall Street Journal. Before diving into the politics and practicality of a Alberta leaving Canada, let's first review some background to see why such a traumatic event could even be considered.
Unlike the U.S., which is netted together with the world's best river system and a favorable geography and climate, Canada is the opposite. Zeihan shows that three barriers split Canada into five largely autonomous regions. They are the Rocky Mountains, the Canadian Shield, and the St. Lawrence River. He says:
Geographically, Canada just isn't a unified entity, and that's without even considering its more publicly discussed challenges such as the Anglophone-Francophone divide or the country's confederal political system, or that because of cold climate most of the Canadian landmass is simply too inhospitable to support a large population, condemning everyone to live on the country's extreme southern fringe.
This makes Canada inherently unstable and unwieldy from both a political and a geographic point of view.
In two significant ways, Alberta is unlike the rest of Canada. First, Alberta is energy-rich. Thanks to a several-decade-old energy boom, Alberta has a high per capita income. This results in the central government in Ottawa sucking taxes out of Alberta. For every dollar Alberta sends to Ottawa, it gets back only about 65 cents in return. This means that Albertans pay $21.8 billion more in taxes than they get back. And it is the aging population of Quebec that benefits the most from this income transfer.
To make matters worse, neighboring provinces have blocked landlocked Alberta from building pipelines for its oil and gas. As for the Trudeau central government, like all progressive administrations, it is enthralled with the green movement and is anti-fossil fuel in all forms. Jenkins writes that this means that Alberta oil has to be shipped to markets by truck or rail, an expensive proposition either way, causing Edmonton's oil to sell at barely $10 a barrel – an 80% discount to world prices. Having to subsidize the rest of Canada while at the same time other Canadians try to squelch the province's energy industry has rankled many Albertans.
The second factor separating Alberta from the rest of Canada is its demographics. Quoting Zeihan:
Alberta's population is getting younger, more highly skilled and better-paid. As the demographic and financial disconnect between Alberta and the rest of Canada grows, these younger, more highly skilled, and better-paid Albertans will be forced to pay ever higher volumes of taxes to Ottawa to compensate for increasingly older, less skilled, and lower income Canadians elsewhere in the country.
The core issue is pretty simple. While Quebecois – and to a slightly lesser degree the rest of Canada – now need Alberta to maintain their standard of living, the Albertans now need not to be part of Canada in order to maintain theirs.
Landlocked as it is, Alberta could not make it as an independent country. But joining the Union has many advantages, such as alleviating much of Alberta's labor shortages in technical areas, privileged access to the U.S. market and transportation system, unlimited access to the American capital market, and inclusion in the U.S. currency zone.
Why would the U.S. entertain the entry of Alberta into the union? Economics. Unlike, say, Puerto Rico, which is (and will continue to be) a welfare state and where Spanish is the native language, Alberta is vibrant, wealthy in energy, and English-speaking. Culturally, Alberta is more in sync with America than is Puerto Rico. As a state, Zeihan claims that Alberta would be per capita the richest. Some will say Democrats would object to adding a "white" state to the Union. Yes, but this knee-jerk racism of the Democrats could be placated by the prospect of having more tax revenue flow into Washington.
As Jenkins notes, the Civil War (1861-1865) made secession illegal in the U.S. But Canada is more mannerly. Its courts have ruled that Canadian provinces have a full legal right to hold independence referenda. When the question of Quebec's secession was on the front burner, the Canadian Supreme Court in 1998 decided unanimously in favor of the legality of secession. Then, in 2000, the Canadian parliament passed a "Clarity Act" to lay out the political process of implementing secession.
The legal framework is in place for secession if a Canadian province chooses to go that route thanks to French-speaking Quebec.
Right now, the secession of Alberta from Canada seems unimaginable. But then again, in 2016, who thought the builder of glitzy casinos in Atlantic City and a reality TV show personality would be elected to the most powerful position in the world with zero political experience? Many of the fundamentals for an Alberta secession are in place. All that is needed is a precipitating event or two. Black swans happen. When they do, people, after getting over the initial shock, slap their foreheads and say, "Of course. We should have seen it coming."
Read more: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/01/alberta_our_51st_state.html#ixzz5eTVvzCiZ
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook
China Caves to President Trump in U.S. Trade War
By Chriss Street
China caved to President Trump’s Trade War demands as state-media published plans that foreign investors will no longer be subject to compulsory technology transfers.
As China’s Vice Premier Liu He was holding a televised meeting with President Trump in the Oval Office to announce big increases for U.S. agricultural exports to China, its Xinhua News Agency announced that China’s President Xi Jinping hopes to meet with Trump just before a March 5 vote by China’s National People’s Congress to ratify elimination of rules for foreign investment mandatory foreign technology transfers.
With the clock running down on Trump’s threat to increase a 10 percent tariff on $200 billion of Chinese exports to a 25 percent tariff on March 1, China is agreeing to meaningful structural trade reforms that the U.S. has been demanding for over a decade.
The move will open a wide swath of China’s internal markets that have been closed to U.S. service industry firms. The breadth of China’s “reform” regime supposedly includes elimination of non-tariff trade barriers such as eliminating state-sponsored cyber-intrusions and converting U.S. intellectual property rights, according to the Epoch Times.
With the draft legislation supposedly setting a goal of guaranteeing equal treatment of foreign companies already reviewed by the National People’s Congress Standing Committee in December, Xinhua stated: “Once adopted, the unified law will replace three existing laws on Chinese-foreign equity joint ventures, non-equity joint ventures (or contractual joint ventures) and wholly foreign-owned enterprises.”
Multinational corporations that massively outsource U.S. production jobs to China have acknowledged that China has run a balance of payments as a percentage of GDP surplus with the United States every year since 1993. But China’s trade surplus peaked at 8.7 percent in 2007 and fell to just 1.7 percent in 2017. That analysis ignores supply chain “value-added” inputs of Chinese parts and subassemblies in products that are “officially” labeled as exports from other Asian nations.
China assumed President Trump and his populist allies would politically be crushed in a Trade War, because 87 percent of the computer and electronics products hit by Trump’s tariffs are produced by Silicon Valley and other non-Chinese-owned factories, according to research by Syracuse University’s Mary Lovely and Yang Liang.
Analysis by the nonpartisan OpenSecrets website reveals that 2018 midterm elections fund-raising led by Silicon Valley and Wall Street Democrats, swamped Main Street and Ag-country Republicans by $385.4 million. Although Democrats successfully regained control of the U.S. House of Representatives, Trump’s energetic barnstorming campaign increased the Republican’s majority in the U.S. Senate.
America in early 2019 has enjoyed its strongest domestic job growth since the 1970’s and a parade of U.S. public companies reported record profits. But the Epoch Times tabulated that between January 29th and 30th, 230 public Chinese companies declared fourth quarter losses of at least 100 million yuan ($14.92 million).
The Chinese must accept that they catastrophically underestimated President Trump’s Trade War resolve to go all-in against China and its multinational corporate fellow-travelers. As a long-term player, China must now cut a deal with a relentless adversary, and hopes America elects a more pliable president in the future.
Read more: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/02/china_caves_to_president_trump_in_us_trade_war.html#ixzz5eTVLXWKL
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook
Howdy PW...always glad to see you...
Journalism is as extinct as the worshipers of Thoth and the Newseum. The media sold off its temple last week, but long before that its hacks and flacks had sold their soul.
If the media falls with no one to report it, does it make a sound?
I sure won't hear it...
LOL yes sir.
just waiting fr Di to come on...then Church...a service call...thinking of making wings and guacamole...Hmmm
make it a GREAT day and enjoy
Been through the WHOLE cycle many times...one of the things Dianna and I are looking forward to once here and Married...going to the pound and picking out two dogs...starting OUR family so to speak...thanks for sharing that...but just know...I didn't/couldn't watch the last two minutes...been there too many times.
Amazing game...tough from start to finish...I don't have cable so had to follow on my puter...SLOW to update...that last minute was AGONY...LOL
Not only a great tough win...but with adversary...several injuries DURING the game...well done Hoosiers...now PLEASE don't rest on this...keep it up all the way into the tourney.
SPARTY will still be here...personally I don'tttttttt think they were expecting a game
because of the way IU had been playing the last 7 games...and they were undefeated at home...their coach needs to keep them away from the press...LOL
TY sir...come over often...always welcome here
Yep...I was a fly on the wall...
Las Vegas Sands Corp (LVS)
59.89 ^ 1.53 (2.62%)
Welcome TH...your input is welcome...just bring the coffee...
If it was anyone but IU yes he'd be pissed.
Waiting to hear as well...would to have loved to have had 100.00 on IU...
Yep yep yep...hope Morgan is ok...
Exactly...so proud of them...and against Sparty...EZ will be pissed...of all the teams to wake up against
OMG...now that's the IU I know and love...79-75 in OT...woot
And that's with Durham getting injured early
WOW...so far hanging tough...leading 56-54 with 6 minutes to go
Caesars/Harrahs
Market Summary > Caesars Entertainment Corporation Common Stock
NASDAQ: CZR
9.26 USD +0.12 (1.31%)
Only on Wed...
Whether it be the big game...basketball or horse racing...place your bets...
https://www.caesars.com/caesars-palace/casino/race-and-sports-book#.XFYhp1xKiUk
From Jan 11th...
Churchill Downs Incorporated Completes Acquisition of Presque Isle Downs & Casino
Churchill Downs Incorporated (“CDI” or “the Company”) (Nasdaq: CHDN) today announced that it has completed the previously announced purchase of Presque Isle Downs & Casino (“Presque Isle”) in Erie, Pennsylvania from Eldorado Resorts, Inc. (“ERI”) (Nasdaq: ERI) for cash consideration of $178.9 million, subject to certain working capital and other purchase price adjustments. The purchase of the property follows the approval of the transaction by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board and the Pennsylvania State Horse Racing Commission. The transaction was funded with cash on hand and through the Company’s existing credit facility.
“Presque Isle will give us a foothold in Pennsylvania and the opportunity to participate in the sports betting and online gaming market throughout the state. This acquisition is projected to be immediately accretive to our shareholders,” said Bill Carstanjen, CEO of CDI. “We are excited about welcoming Presque Isle and its employees to the Churchill family.”
About Presque Isle Downs & Casino
Presque Isle opened its casino in February 2007 and operates approximately 1,600 slots, 32 table games and a poker room. Presque Isle also conducts live thoroughbred racing.
About Churchill Downs Incorporated
Churchill Downs Incorporated ("CDI") (Nasdaq: CHDN), headquartered in Louisville, Ky., is an industry leading racing, gaming and online entertainment company anchored by our iconic flagship event – The Kentucky Derby. We are the largest legal online account wagering platform for horseracing in the U.S., through our ownership of TwinSpires.com. We are also a leader in brick-and-mortar casino gaming with approximately 9,500 gaming positions in seven states. We have launched our BetAmerica Sportsbook at our two Mississippi casino properties and have announced plans to enter additional U.S. real money online gaming and sports betting markets. Derby City Gaming, the first historical racing machine (“HRM”) facility in Louisville, was opened in September 2018 with 900 HRM machines. Additional information about CDI can be found online at www.churchilldownsincorporated.com.
https://ih.advfn.com/stock-market/NASDAQ/churchill-downs-CHDN/stock-news/79039733/churchill-downs-incorporated-completes-acquisition
Howdy...game is about to kick off...looks like Archie has a good assessment of the team...can he inject a little Heart??
Good to see you here copy...any sport or gaming stocks you interested in??
Welcome all to the Sports and Gaming board...relax...have fun...and post away on sports and gaming venue stocks and events
OK started a free board...please go here...you too EZ...
https://investorshub.advfn.com/Sporting-and-gaming-venue-Stocks-36617/
Have a good one...if the weather clears some I have an AC service call around noon
Pretty much healed...she is being careful though and NOW...her work has supplied her with their equivalent of YakTraks (Spelling??)
Currently there is 3" of snow on the ground at her clients...even though it is clear where Di lives...only 8 miles away
Hehe...the only duck and cover I do is a duck in a stew pot with a lid...
Like the Borg says...Resistance is Futile...
He did indeed...went over some of it with Di but she had to go back to work...will continue this evening...
Well it is 59 and foggy...the harm???...Don't want to be in the crosshairs of EZ's sniper rifle...<g>
MOI???...BWAhahaha...I still believe we start a mini Iceage by 2020
Maybe the LibTurds can blame that on Mr T getting re-elected...LOL
Actually if Di were here...it would be stew...lol
OMG...gag me with a spoon...thanks for the heads up and I wasn't drinking coffee at the time...and now Di is here so I'm not...LOL
Morning Skiz
She is clueless...ok Di time...back later...have fun getting ready for spring...
After his last interview I doubt he would get re elected anyway
Morning K
Indeed
Aww just shoot the little bugger...THAT'S the only way he'll get some sleep
LMAO...actually I've been waiting to hear him make that claim...but then...the LibProgs will blame Mr T for the Polar Vortex...wait...I think they already do...
Morning EZ
Out of respect I will NOT announce my temps...but it is pretty damn foggy here...and not because of my head injury...