[IsraelTimes] A New Jersey man pleads guilty to a series of attacks on Jews in a violent mostly peaceful mostly peaceful crime spree in April 2022, the US Attorney’s Office in the District of New Jersey says.
Dion Marsh, 27, pleaded guilty to five counts of violating the federal Hate Crimes Prevention Act, as well as carjacking.
Marsh was charged with willfully causing bodily injury to five people, and attempting to kill and injure four of them because they were Jewish, the US Attorney says.
"This defendant is being held accountable for his series of depraved, antisemitic assaults against members of the Orthodox Jewish community," says Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
"Hate-filled acts of violence, intended to harm, intimidate and isolate communities, have no place in our society," Clarke says. "The Justice Department will continue to aggressively prosecute perpetrators of antisemitic violence across our country."
A sentencing hearing is scheduled for June 11.
The attacks critically injured two Jewish men, and seriously injured a third.
The rampage started at 1:18 p.m. in the town of Lakewood, when Marsh forced an identifiably Jewish man out of his car, assaulting and injuring him, and driving off in the vehicle.
At 6:06 p.m. on the same day, Marsh rammed another Orthodox Jewish man while driving a different vehicle. He was attempting to kill the victim and broke several of his bones, prosecutors said.
At 6:55 p.m., driving the stolen vehicle, Marsh rammed another Orthodox Jewish man, then got out of the vehicle and stabbed the victim in the chest with a knife, prosecutors said.
At 8:23 p.m., during Shabbat, Marsh rammed another Orthodox Jewish man in the nearby Jackson Township, attempting to kill him and causing several broken bones and internal injuries.
Law enforcement arrested Marsh at his home that night.
WHY DID DION MARSH CARRY OUT THE ATTACKS?
Marsh told Sherlocks that the attacks "had to be done" because Hasidic Jews "are the real devils," according to the federal complaint.
"They had this coming," he said.
The Anti-Defamation League said that Marsh had not displayed any indication of antisemitism before the attacks. He now faces a maximum penalty of life in prison and a $250,000 fine for each of the four hate crimes violations in which he attempted to kill his victim, a maximum sentence of 10 years for the hate crime assault and 15 years for carjacking. He also faces additional state charges.
The FBI investigated the case along with local police.
A Good News/Bad News story
[FoxNews] Oregon voters, lawmakers call for reinstitution of criminal penalties three years after passing nation's first decriminalization law.
Experimenting with human lives.
Oregon has turned into a battlefield in the war over drug policy since the state became the first to decriminalize drug possession. Nearly 60% of voters approved Measure 110 but, three years later, numerous polls suggest they regret that move. And no other states have followed Oregon's lead, despite assurances from researchers and decriminalization advocates that the law is not responsible for increased addiction, overdoses and crime.
State lawmakers are poised to re-criminalize drug possession in a special legislative session that begins Monday, though Democrats and Republicans have drafted competing bills. And Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek declared a 90-day state of emergency this week in downtown Portland, where the fentanyl crisis has been most pronounced.
"Our country and our state have never seen a drug this deadly and addictive, and all are grappling with how to respond," Kotek, a Democrat, said in a release. "We are all in this together."
Fentanyl strikes fear among even longtime drug users.
"This is creating zombies," Lori, a homeless woman in Portland, told Fox News last summer. "This sh-- should be illegal because they're killing the mentally ill for a dollar a pill, because I guarantee ya, all these people have some kind of mental illness."
Michael Dusek, who uses marijuana and meth, agreed.
"They’re incoherent most of the time, they’re babbling about something to themselves quite loudly, like they can’t hear themselves," said Dusek, who has been homeless off and on since 1992. "They’re like living dead."
Overdose deaths in the state surged from 800 in 2020 to 1,394 in 2022, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The overwhelming majority of fatal overdoses are now attributed to fentanyl, according to Oregon health data.
"It seems like we got all of Oregon coming, just to pick up fentanyl now," Dusek said of Portland.
Decriminalization advocates point out that fatal overdoses surged across the country beginning in early 2020, not just in Oregon. Many analysts attribute the spike to isolation and despair during the coronavirus pandemic.
Nikki said she has revived 32 people in the past year, collecting as many doses of naloxone as she can from clinics, shelters and even places where citizens have "just nailed a box to a tree or to a wall and keep it stocked with Narcan."
Most fentanyl users Fox News spoke to were difficult — if not impossible — to understand. One woman chattered breathlessly while absently sorting syringes inside her tent, one hand protected by a blue latex glove. A 27-year-old man muttered that he was originally from Idaho, then lived on the Yakama Indian Reservation before a family member dropped him off in Portland so he could "live homeless and do drugs."
"Most of them are mentally ill, and the families don't wanna take care of them," Lori said. "Or they're sick and old and their families don't take care of 'em."
THE RISE OF FENTANYL
Methamphetamine was historically Oregon’s drug of choice. But around 2018, law enforcement started to see a trickle of fentanyl, and then a surge, outpacing cocaine, heroin and meth. The small blue pills looked like Oxycodone and were filling the void left after states cracked down on opioid prescriptions.
And they were cheap to produce.
"It doesn't take a whole lot of fentanyl to meet the supply side for particular users to give them the effects that they want," said Chris Gibson, executive director of the Oregon-Idaho High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA).
The number of pills law enforcement seized soared from about 100,000 in 2019, to more than 3 million in 2022, according to HIDTA's annual report. And while preliminary data from 2023 shows the increase in pill seizures slowing, powder seizures more than tripled last year. Police who participate in the HIDTA reported finding more than 180 kg (nearly 400 lbs) of fentanyl powder, Gibson said.
"When you start thinking about the fact that it's estimated that two milligrams of fentanyl is a lethal dose to a new user, we start seeing the dangers of that," Gibson said.
The ingredients to make fentanyl are typically shipped from China to Mexico, Gibson said, then the finished product makes its way up the I-5 corridor from border to border, fanning out along the way.
"Oregon can't control the southern border, but we have Honduran cartel members all in our urban areas pushing deadly fentanyl," Clackamas County Commissioner Ben West said. "We can't control that. But that costs Oregonians lives, and it causes a lot of criminality and despair."
But Oregon can control its drug policies, West said, and "elections have consequences."
Here’s a demo of New York City’s new automatic side loading garbage truck lifting large on street containers. A pilot program is expanding to all of Community Board District 9 in West Harlem. pic.twitter.com/d9NmXaupOC
Undoubtedly, those same people would assume that their places of residence were on the cutting edge of technology in all things, including city/county garbage trucks that have automated side loaders that pick up the cans without sanitation workers having to do much--if any--of the heavy lifting.
In fact, such a scenario is playing out as we speak in New York City, where on Thursday, our purported intellectual betters debuted such a truck surrounded by much hoopla, with music playing, cameras rolling, photographers snapping pictures, and politicos smiling and posing for photo ops while holding bags of trash:
The trucks, which are still undergoing testing, will be able to hoist on-street containers the city will eventually require high-density buildings to use to store trash, Mayor Eric Adams said at a news conference in Manhattan’s Hudson Square Thursday.
Reporters got a demonstration of one truck’s bin-hoisting abilities just before the mayor’s announcement.
“The truck you see next to me,” Adams said, pointing to the vehicle, “represents the future of New York City garbage collection.”
The new trucks will be able to collect trash “substantially faster” than manual pickup allows, City Hall said in a news release.
#7
As # 2 above points out, there is a looming crime wave waiting to happen.
Looking for a show of hands of those that think the EFFBEYE is already prowling the airwaves/etheric for the initial attempts to organize local self-defense groups by American citizens, instead of tracking the emerging illegal alien crews.
#11
^ You're probably right. When I lived in San Francisco back in the 80's, the "mama sans" who ran most of the corner stores ran a thriving business in liquor and cigarettes for food stamps. All it took was a little creative accounting.
#12
^ Of course, the "kickbacks" went to chainsmoking little old men who soent their days hanging out in clubs with names like The Five Rivers Benevolency Association in little alleys off of Grant Street. Scary little bastards; I used to pull a lot of tags to those places as a bike messenger. My boss at the time was a half-Chinese woman who had been badly burned over half her body in an explosion. I learned quickly to not ask a lot of questions.
[NYPOST] Comedian Shane Gillis will partner with beer brand Bud Light following a dismal year for the brand, according to a company post on Instagram.
"Welcome to the team @shanemgillis, excited to be a part of your 2024 tour," the beer brand posted.
"Excited to announce partnership with Bud Light #budlightpartner," Gillis posted to his Instagram account.
Bud Light sales plummeted last year after news broke that the brand had partnered with transgender influencer and activist Dylan Stench of Death Mulvaney ...the transexual influencer who single-handedly trashed a major American beer brand owned by a Belgian company, tainted Maybelline and Condé Nast, and then demanded that anybody who called him/her/it a man be arrested... Mulvaney was announced as a Bud Light spokesperson to promote the March Madness basketball tournament in April, which prompted a months-long boycott of the brand.
The trans activist showed off cans of Bud Light sent by Anheuser-Busch that featured Mulvaney’s face, celebrating a milestone in her viral "365 Days of Girlhood" series, where the influencer detailed her daily experiences in her first year identifying as a transgender woman on TikTok.
The partnership led to backlash and plummeting Bud Light sales, which resulted in the company no longer being America’s top-selling beer brand.
Gillis recently appeared on the "Joe Rogan Experience" podcast, where he and host Joe Rogan discussed the Dylan Mulvaney disaster.
"It became a joke," Gillis told Rogan. "That’s tough to overcome, marketing-wise. It’s tough to get people to order a Bud Light publicly. You’re gonna get made fun of."
"There’s never been a brand that has been hit like this before," Rogan added.
Todd Allen, Vice President of Marketing for Bud Light, told Fox News Digital: "Humor has always been at the heart of the Bud Light brand and central to our ’Easy Enjoyment’ platform. We’re excited to partner with longtime fan of Bud Light, Shane Gillis, for his 2024 Live Comedy Tour where a good time with friends is always easy to enjoy."
Interesting times, especially in the Budweiser C-Suite. It seems Mr. Gillis has a reputation for blunt comedy — a few years ago he was fired for anti-gay jokes by Saturday Night Live before he stepped foot on their stage.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/03/2024 7:47 Comments ||
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#3
^^^ right after it spoke at that university and 8 ppl showed up
Posted by: Chris ||
02/03/2024 8:41 Comments ||
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#4
Fiasco? This was the most effective advertising campaign in the history of ever. Usually an ad campaign need weeks/months/years to have an effect. Here, almost overnight, Bud Light seared an association into America's psyche. It was a marketing triumph. It did not do much for sales though, as their beer was now associated with something their traditional light beer-drinking customers wanted nothing to do with.
tl;dr: And just like that Bud Light, morphed into Butt Light.
#7
The key to all of this was there never was a boycott. Lots of people just decided on their own that they did not want to be associated with this brand. The only thing left is to "New Coke" the whole thing and move on.
[NYPOST] A marauding army of some 3,500 monkeys have invaded a city center in Thailand, keeping tourists away and forcing businesses to shutter, according to reports.
The monkeys have become such a significant problem that the popular city of Lopburi is at risk of becoming a ghost town as Chinese investors are withholding their money until the issue is addressed, according to the South China Post.
Several companies and stores have shut their operations and fled the once-thriving trade center as local macaques harass customers and destroy businesses, according to the report.
Surachat Chanprasit, deputy of Pingya Shopping Center, told Thai outlet Khaosod that monkeys often enter the mall to climb and bother customers who come to shop.
Small business owners who rent space to sell their goods often have to fix roofs, windows and other damages each month. The mall was put up for sale two years ago but there have been no buyers.
[JustTheNews] The South Carolina Senate passed a measure to allow South Carolinians to carry a gun without a permit, but a pro-gun rights group says a provision in the amended version of the legislation says it violates the Second Amendment.
The Senate voted 28-15 in favor of H.3594, the South Carolina Constitutional Carry/Second Amendment Preservation Act of 2023,
"Today, the South Carolina Senate took a huge step toward closing the 'revolving door' on career repeat criminals," Gov. Henry McMaster said in a statement. "Stricter increased penalties for repeat illegal gun use and possession will keep these criminals behind bars instead of shooting up our streets with impunity.
"It was a collaborative and cooperative effort by the Senate," the governor added. "My hope is that the House will concur with their improvements and send it to my desk immediately so we can begin saving lives."
The measure returns to the House, where lawmakers will consider changes the Senate made.
"Once this bill is signed into law, every law-abiding South Carolinian will be able to carry a firearm anywhere it is legal to do so, without the need for a permission slip from the government," state Sen. Wes Climer, R-Rock Hill, chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee, said in a statement. "It ranks among the most significant expansions of individual liberty in this State in decades."
The proposal bars South Carolinians from carrying a gun into some places, such as a courthouse, a polling place and a church without "express permission" or a hospital "unless expressly authorized."
In a letter to House members, Dudley Brown, president of the National Association for Gun Rights, said the measure cannot be called "Constitutional Carry" as an amendment — No. 36 — "creates a new criminal penalty of exercising the Constitutional right to carry a weapon publicly without a permit."
"This alone irreparably compromises a bill which was originally designed to honor the inalienable right to self-defense as enshrined in the Second Amendment," Brown wrote.
"Not content with violating one provision of the Constitution, the Senate language goes on to trample the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution by applying this new criminal penalty only to a disfavored portion of the South Carolina citizenry," Brown added. "Under this language, individuals who exercise their Constitutional right to carry a weapon without a government permission slip are penalized criminally for doing so, if convicted of certain other additional crimes. However, individuals who commit those crimes do not get the penalty if they carry a valid concealed weapons permit at the time."
[GEO.TV] A massive gas explosion in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, has left about 300 people injured and at least three dead.
A lorry carrying gas went kaboom! in Embakasi district at about 23:30 (20:30 GMT), "igniting a huge ball of fire", a government spokesperson said.
Damage was done to cars, shops, and housing. A massive fire could be seen burning near apartment buildings in the video.
An inquiry into the cause of the earth-shattering kaboom is underway, and the area has been roped off.
It has been found by the BBC that the event has resulted in the arrest of at least one person.
The authorities then explained that a truck had detonated in the parking yard of the gas plant, rather than the original claim that the blast occurred there while workers were replenishing gas cylinders.
As a result, the fire that started has been contained.
Wesley Kimeto, the head of Embakasi police, confirmed that a child was among the dear departed and warned that the number could still go up.
The authorities reported that 271 individuals, including at least 25 children, were admitted to the hospital.
Many of these individuals were treated and returned home, according to Nairobi Mayor Sakaja Johnson, while at least 39 were transported to other hospitals with serious or critical injuries.
Twenty-seven more individuals received on-site care for non-life-threatening wounds.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/03/2024 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11131 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Consider this the next time you are idling next to a tanker in traffic.
[ZeroHedge] Radio powerhouses—BBC, Deutsche Welle, Voice of America—have either cut back on their China service or moved programs online. Meanwhile, the “Great Firewall,” the regime’s censorship apparatus aimed at isolating China digitally, seems only to grow taller by the day.
Bucking the trend is a largely volunteer-run radio network called Sound of Hope, whose 10 p.m. and midnight segments kept Mr. Chen informed about current affairs in China during his years in prison.
The company now boasts one of the largest shortwave broadcasting networks around China, with about 120 stations beaming signals to China 24/7.
Allen Zeng, Sound of Hope’s co-founder and CEO, sees shortwave as the answer to the regime’s information blackout.
“They can turn off the internet, carry out the killing, wash clean the blood, and turn it back on,” he told The Epoch Times, pointing to Iran’s pattern of blocking the internet during nationwide protests.
With shortwave radio, though, “they have nowhere to turn it off,” Mr. Zeng said.
“It’s like the rain falling down from the sky—they have no way to block the sky.”
A VOICE TO TRUST
An unlikely journey began in 2004 for Mr. Zeng, then a Silicon Valley engineer.
Inside China, a massive nationwide campaign had been underway, targeting virtually one in 13 Chinese who live by truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, the three tenets of the faith group Falun Gong.
Arbitrary jailing, slave labor, the abuse of psychiatric drugs, and sexual abuse—the stories trickling out of China were sickening enough that Mr. Zeng and a team of like-minded Chinese expats felt they could no longer stand by.
“We had to do something about it. We needed to stop the killing,” he said.
The first thing that came to mind was the shortwave radio that had been a household item in China since the Cold War era, one that in 1989, Mr. Zeng and other college students had turned to for information when authorities rolled their tanks over democracy-loving demonstrators in Tiananmen Square.
“Because nothing else could be trusted,” he said.
With little budget and know-how, the team started small: leasing one hour of airtime from Taiwanese national broadcaster Radio Taiwan International.
Around that time, “Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party,” an Epoch Times editorial series that unpacked the nature of the Chinese regime, had just been published, and Sound of Hope took it to audio.
It was such a hit in Beijing that shortwave radios were out of stock for months.
The response, and occasional words of encouragement from listeners who managed to bypass China’s internet censorship, kept Mr. Zeng’s team going. Dissidents chipped in and programs diversified. Soon, they were Radio Taiwan International’s biggest contractor.
Gauging the size of the network’s audience is difficult given the opacity of data from China.
But Sound of Hope became so influential that it caught Beijing’s attention. The Chinese regime began to pressure the radio network’s Taiwanese partner.
Eventually, the Taiwanese broadcaster backed out. Sound of Hope was back to square one.
‘WALKING IN THE DARK’
Giving up wasn’t in Mr. Zeng’s vocabulary.
As the partnership with Taiwan unraveled, the engineers raced to develop their own solutions. They drew inspiration from fishing vessels’ radio waves to build their own transmitter.
The result was a mini-tower based in Taiwan with upward-facing antennas that spread out like wings. They nicknamed it “Seagull.”
The team set its sights low. The first “seagull” had a power level of 100 watts—a thousandth of the smallest radio service they had leased from the Taiwanese broadcaster.
“It was the only thing we could afford,” Mr. Zeng said.
“Seagull” No. 1 was short-lived, and so were many of its successors whose signals the Chinese authorities quickly jammed. But to the team, it was a major discovery: At 100 watts, they still had a chance to be heard.
They kept producing and tweaking their equipment with each new creation.
“It was just like walking in the dark—we didn’t know whether there would be an end to this tunnel,” Mr. Zeng said.
Finally, on the 16th try, they saw a breakthrough. The signal broke through and held steady.
Mr. Zeng figured that they had, for the moment, consumed all the jamming power from China.
“We outgunned them pretty much,” he said. “They cannot move as fast as we did.”
EXPANSION
Technical challenges aside, getting the stations to work was no easy feat.
The wilderness, their best location for an uninterrupted signal, is also a haven for creepy crawlies, from scorpions to snakes. Hsieh Shih-mu, a volunteer, stepped on a snake once and sighted many more while building some of the earliest “seagulls” in Taiwan’s southern tip. Often, after wobbling back home on a motorcycle on the pitch-black mountain road, he was covered in mosquito bites.
Narrow and muddy, the path became doubly treacherous after rain. One time, another volunteer nearly fell off the hill—and would have, if not for the roadside tree branches that caught his motorcycle. They had to call a tow truck to haul the man back up.
In which the Beeb makes fun of Chinese rubes for a change, while oh so cleverly insinuating that Americans supporting Governor Abbott are also rubes.
[BBC] Amid the escalating border standoff between Texas and the White House over illegal immigration, misinformation has spread in China that the Lone Star state has officially declared war to secede from the US.
Popular Chinese outlets have been suggesting that events in Texas have led to deep divisions in the US widening to a point where unrest has become a stark reality.
Farmers across the continent have been protesting for weeks against grievances including taxes, rising costs, cheap imports, climate policies and bureaucracy
As many as 2,000 trucks are stranded outside the Port of Zeebrugge in Bruges
Meanwhile Germany, which was hit by farmer demonstrations earlier this month, is now also facing a bruising public transport strike.
As 90,000 public transport workers were called on to walk off the job on Friday, bus and tram stations across the country ground to a standstill, disrupting millions of commuters and travellers.
The 24-hour strike, called by labour union Verdi in all federal states except Bavaria, is the latest in a series of industrial actions that have plagued the country's transportation sector in recent weeks.
Central to Verdi's demands are improved working conditions, it said in a statement, listing reduced working hours and increased holiday entitlement as requested measures.
'We have a dramatic shortage of labour in public transport and incredible pressure on employees. Buses and trains are cancelled every day in all fare zones because there are not enough staff,' Verdi deputy chairwoman, Christine Behle, said Monday.
Youth and climate movement Fridays for Future
...the formal name of autistic Swedish teen Greta Thunberg’s onging temper tantrum on the climate. As she enters adulthood, her worldwide group is graduating from Black Bloc ally to Black Bloc...
said 60 of its local branches supported the industrial action.
On Thursday, a strike by security staff at 11 German airports had affected 200,000 travellers and led to around 1,100 flight cancellations or delays, the German airports association ADV said.
Disruptions were set to continue in Hamburg, where Verdi called on ground service staff to strike from 3am (0200 GMT) on Friday until midnight.
Friday's protests followed a demonstration on Thursday outside the European Union's Brussels headquarters as the EU's leaders overcame months of opposition from Hungarian leader Viktor Orban to agree 50 billion euros of aid for Ukraine.
But the farmers wanted their issues on the agenda too. They clogged roads around the summit with 1,300 tractors in a show of strength, lighting fires and pulling down a city statue. They also burned bales of hay and threw eggs and fireworks at police, who formed a protective ring around the building.
Inside, eager to reassure a key part of the electorate and end disruption in several cities, leaders at a European Union summit in Brussels showered the farmers with compliments and compassion - if few concrete proposals. Most leaders at Thursday's summit were keen to win over farmers ahead of EU parliamentary elections in June, especially as populist and hard-right politicians have latched on to their plight in recent weeks.
#2
I just checked the BBC News website- not a single mention of this. Just scanned NBC News, not a word. Curious that the whole issue of significant and effective, French, Dutch, German agriculture protests is missing. Almost as if there is coordinated collusion?
[Breitbart] The University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, has launched a segregated pool activity called “Black Folx Swim,” which expressly excludes participation by non-black swimmers.
“The aim is to get more Black Folx into a space where they haven’t always been welcomed, while providing them the opportunity to learn swimming skills,” the school’s website states.
Swimming lessons are taught exclusively by “experienced black swimmers/instructors,” the site adds, noting that the segregated pool time “is dedicated to building a better relationship with water for the Black community.”
Not content with bringing back racial segregation, the University of Waterloo — a Canadian public university — has also created a regular pool time for winter 2024 that excludes heterosexuals.
“Trans and Non-binary programming aims to provide a safer, comfortable, inclusive, and fun atmosphere for trans and non-binary and the 2SLGBTQ+ community,” the school declares about its swim program.
As in the case of the black swimmers-only pool time, the LGBT+ program “will be delivered and/or supervised by a [sic] members or allies of the aforementioned community.”
The university does make one concession to heterosexuals, saying they are “welcome if participating with trans or non-binary persons.”
Otherwise, heterosexuals are asked to “please respect this space and come at another time when space is open to all users.”
#4
Pool open from twelve until one
For people of color! [cue... fun...
and jumping through hoops
by the usual groups]
"You can fill it back up now. We done."
Posted by: Lionel Oppressor of the Leprechauns8018 ||
02/03/2024 11:26 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Y'all better have an abundance of lifeguards ready.
Uh, yeah, that's gonna be a problem. We could get white people who know how to swim, but that is White Supremacy and reinforces the White Savior Complex, so no. Hispanics, maybe? No, they have a similar non-swimming reputation - according to the U.S.A. Swimming Foundation, 70 percent of African-American children and 60 percent of Hispanic children don't know how to swim. Maybe life-saving robots...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/03/2024 11:28 Comments ||
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#7
The African Canadian minority is under served probably because there used to not be many of them. Trudeau has flooded the country with immigrants but none of the new comers will be descendants of American slaves although slavery exists in Africa to this day. In short, this will benefit a few people and maybe some Pakistanis and Somalians can get some laps in as well
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/03/2024 11:50 Comments ||
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#8
Midnight Bassetbaw Laps
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/03/2024 13:04 Comments ||
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#9
Whoever suggested field produce incentives, please go to your room.
[Breitbart] Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said that roughly a fifth of the 900,000 small businesses that took out interest-free loans to survive the government’s civil rights abuses during the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic have not repaid the loans yet.
The Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses (CFIB) painted an even grimmer picture, estimating that 25 percent of borrowers have missed the January deadline.
Bankruptcies in Canada began surging as pandemic funding dried up in 2023, so the possibility that more than 200,000 small businesses might not repay their emergency loans is a bad omen for 2024.
CFIB and the Canadian Finance Ministry assured Reuters on Thursday that massive small business collapse was not in the cards, even for the companies that missed their pandemic loan repayment deadline. The optimistic view holds that those borrowers will sign up for long-term repayment programs that will charge them five percent interest over the next two years, but there are signs the slumping Canadian economy might finish off some tottering business models:
“We do anticipate … a rise in insolvencies over the next six months or so,” Stephen Tapp, chief economist at the Chamber of Commerce, said in an interview.
The Conference Board of Canada (CBC), an independent think tank, forecasts that consumer spending in 2024 on a per capita basis is expected to slump further from what was already seen last year.
CBC estimates first quarter corporate profits to nearly half to C$104.5 billion from a year ago, and the rest of the year will also be weaker than 2023 with companies hit by higher costs and drop in sales.
BNN Bloomberg warned in mid-January that many troubled Canadian small businesses would throw in the towel instead of piling up interest on balances they could not pay before the January 18 deadline for settling pandemic emergency loans. The deadline has already been pushed back several times because business groups said it was too difficult to meet.
Not only do the late payers have to pay five percent interest on the extended repayment plan, but they also lost $20,000 in loan forgiveness offered by the government for prompt repayment of their Canada Emergency Business Account (CEBA) loans.
Some small business owners told BNN they could not see the logic of remaining in business with lower customer traffic and tighter profit margins, facing an obligation they might be able to repay for loans they only needed in the first place because the government shut them down during the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.
Another problem facing struggling Canadian small businesses is that if they do not repay their CEBA loans, commercial banks will consider them poor risks and refuse to loan them more money. This could make it difficult for troubled enterprises to survive for another year if the CEBA deadline is pushed back to 2025, as many have requested.
The Vancouver Sun spoke to more owners who said the CEBA loans intended to help them through the pandemic lockdowns might be what shuts them down now that the pandemic is over, inflation and costs are rising, and business is down.
#7
A my wife's family Xmas gathering, a nephew took great delight in 'buzzing' me with his micro drone... until I snatched it out of the air and tossed it in the sink.
Game over.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
02/03/2024 13:08 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Breitbart] 
...the transexual 
[GEO.TV] A massive gas explosion in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, has left about 300 people injured and at least three dead.
