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Well since you asked, let me list the various points of credit for which Mr. Trump is so most deserving.Trump is claiming an economy that Obama delivered, (chart follows) and has been able to ride on Obama’s economic success until his own “economic policies’ bit with disastrous effect. Now the USA is facing the real possibility of a recession in spite of the fact that he was handed a large and growing economy.U.S. posts a record trade deficit in goods despite ‘America First’ policies The 2018 figure shows that President Trump’s tariffs and tough policies have failed to shrink a trade gap that he argues represents a massive transfer of wealth from Americans to foreigners. Source Washington PostTrump promised he would get rid of the national debt in 8 years but now it’s at an all-time high with Trump actually adding $8.3 trillion in additional debt. Source: Trump and the National Debt Trump Pledged to Eliminate the Debt. Instead He Will Add $8.3 TrillionThe VA is in shambles and he fired the only man that vets trusted. Trump and the Republicans pulled support for the Vets while the Dems supported a number of bills to help them. And it was Trump who fired the only Vet Director that the vets had any faith in and put in place a lackey that has done nothing but undermine the advances the prior director had made. “According to Military Times: “Vets still face long waits with the fraudulent VA Choice program. Dems up to saving taxpayers from another GOP fraud.According to Stars and Stripes, veterans using VA Choice program could get stuck with a $30,000 medical bill. GOP up to no good. If Dems don't stop con fraud, who will?”Trump’s Budget Proposal Cut Support for Disabled Veterans?The president's plan did call for changes that would have had a significant financial effect on some disabled veterans. Source Military timesHow often do Republicans undermine veterans?When you hear Republicans praising veterans, do not believe it for a minute. Congressional Republicans blocked or filibustered bill after bill that would have aided veterans, all in an attempt to undermine President Barack Obama while cutting taxes for the wealthy are still at with Trump as leader.Mitch McConnell and his cohorts filibustered a stopped a total of $21 billion in funds that would have expanded veteran benefits and saved expansions.Trump and the GOP claim they love the military, maybe so, but the sure as hell have no use for them when they have done their duty for their country and come home!Here’s a partial list of what the Republicans “did” for the Vets:• blocked a $1 billion jobs bill that would have helped millions of vets• blocked a bill that would have kept benefits on par with the cost of living• killed the Wounded Veteran Job Security Act• killed the Veterans Retraining Act• killed the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program Act• killed the Disabled Veterans Home Improvement Act• killed the Job Creation Through Entrepreneurship ActHere Is just another few examples of what Trump is planning for the Vets:1.Source: The Stars and Stripeshttps://www.stripes.com/news/group-urges-white-house-va-to-reject-resurfaced-proposal-cutting-disabled-unemployed-veterans-benefits-1.561091“WASHINGTON — A cost-saving proposal has resurfaced in a new Congressional Budget Office report as an option to help reduce the federal budget deficit.The report suggests removing approximately 235,000 disabled veterans from a Department of Veterans Affairs program called Individual Unemployability in 2020, projecting it could save $47.6 billion in the next 10 years. Veterans removed from the program would see their monthly incomes decrease by an average of $1,300, according to CBO estimates.“We want the White House to immediately make a statement saying Trump’s recommendation is out of line and will not be considered,” said Joe Chenelly, director of Veteran Affairs.The program applies to veterans who have disability ratings through the VA of between 60 percent and 100 percent and are unable to secure jobs because of their disabilities. It allows them to receive the highest compensation rate.The CBO suggested removing veterans from Individual Unemployability once they reach age 67, claiming those veterans would be eligible for Social Security by that time.The cut was one of 121 cost-saving proposals included in the CBO report, titled “Options for Reducing the Deficit: 2019 to 2028.” The CBO periodically compiles the list of policy options to help inform lawmakers.2.Trump 2020 budget: Which department budgets would be cut ...https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/politics/trump-budget-2020/Mar 11, 2019 - The Trump administration released its 2020 budget request on Monday, Veterans Affairs ...Also Cuts $845 billion over the next 10 years from Medicare, the federal program that provides health insurance to older Americans.3. White House has no answer for 7 million veterans who stand to lose health care"In their desperation to gain votes for their unpopular plan to repeal Obamacare, House Republicans inserted a raft of “improvements” to the bill, including one that could harm up to 7 million veterans by making them ineligible for the bill’s tax credits.The most recent estimates suggest about 9.1 million individuals are enrolled in VA health programs. However, a 2014 Congressional Budget Office score of veterans’ choice legislation concluded that “about 8 million [veterans] qualify to enroll in VA’s health system but have not enrolled.” Subtracting for VA enrollment gains since that CBO score leaves approximately seven million veterans eligible for, but not enrolled in, VA health programs, and thus potentially affected by the House’s “technical” change.”Source: https://defendingthetruth.com/threads/7-million-vets-could-lose-health-care.60726/4.Veterans are losing 6 different ways right now’The implosion of Ronny Jackson’s nomination to lead the Veterans Affairs Department may look like the Trump administration’s drama of the moment, but it carries big consequences for 9 million veterans in a sprawling health care system with uneven results and a precarious future.Not only does the VA have no leader, but the veteran health care community is also divided between conservatives inclined to privatize much of veterans’ care and those who want to invest more in fixing the current system. The impact can be seen across 170 medical centers and hundreds of clinics of varying quality that treat veterans who served in the U.S. military in every conflict since World War II.5. Did Congress Just Screw 7 Million Vets Out Of Their Tax Credits?Source: https://taskandpurpose.com/congress-veterans-ahca-trumpcareTrump has appointed cabinet heads all intent on reversing the very oversight, rules, and regulations in favor of big business, but which were originally put in place by both sides of the aisle to protect consumers and the environment. Toxic chemicals threaten water supply Source Washington PostE.P.A. Plans to Get Thousands of Pollution Deaths Off the Books by Changing Its Math“The Environmental Protection Agency plans to change the way it calculates the health risks of air pollution, a shift that would make it easier to roll back a key climate change rule because it would result in far fewer predicted deaths from pollution, according to five people with knowledge of the agency’s plans.”The E.P.A. had originally forecast that eliminating the Obama-era rule, the Clean Power Plan, and replacing it with a new measure would have resulted in an additional 1,400 premature deaths per year.Source: E.P.A. Plans to Get Thousands of Pollution Deaths Off the Books by Changing Its MathThe EPA is also cutting off funding for several research centers that study the effects of pollution on childhood development. Greenwire’s Corbin Hiar and Ariel Wittenberg report: “The move, critics say, is part of a broader effort by [Trump] to downplay science that could lead to stricter regulations on polluting industries. At issue are 13 Children’s Environmental Health and Disease “Prevention Research Centers located at institutions across the country.” Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/category/the-daily-202/?utm_term=.1d89f15bad9b&wpisrc=nl_daily202&wpmm=1Trump has 17 investigations and criminal charges against his companies, family and his presidency, all of which undermines the presidency as well as America’s standing on the world stage. The direct result, it is taking time and serious attention away from the very issues that need fixing.The $1.5 trillion in tax breaks that he promised the middle class, didn’t go to the working poor or the middle class, but instead directly benefited him, his family, the richest 1% and the most profitable corporations on the planet. The same CEO’s and top executives gave themselves major bonuses and then bought back their own stock that gave the markets a temporary surge, only to collapse as investors lost confidence in Trump and his looney policies and tariffs. “The tax cut has utterly failed to deliver the promised investment boom. Companies didn’t use their giant windfall to build new plants and raise productivity, they used it to buy back a lot of stock, passing the gains on to wealthy investors.” Source: New York TimesAT&T pocketed Trump’s tax cuts after promising 7,000 new jobs — but slashed 23,000 jobs instead while pocketing the tax cuts. Source: AT&T promised 7,000 new jobs to get tax break—it cut 23,000 jobs insteadThese unfair and misdirected tax cuts resulted in a double whammy adding to already serious fiscal deficiencies by reducing taxes overall while increasing the burgeoning deficit problem. Not only has America been ‘robbed’ of those taxes now and going forward, but these are taxes that should in all fairness be paid by the very rich, and highly profitable corporations. “Trump’s twin deficits show that his party has been lying about its policy priorities and that he is completely clueless about his signature policy issue”. Source: New York Times. This unwarranted tax cut for the rich has increased the deficit by an additional $1 trillion dollars, now estimated to actually come in at close to $2 trillion. And guess who is going to pay for it… one guess.Both Rubio and McConnell have both stated very clearly on a number of occasions that the deficit will have to be reduced with cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and wait for it…. your own hard-earned Social Security benefits. You know, the fund you have been paying into all your working life, the one, that you counted on to supplement and assuage your retirement when the time comes! Well, thanks to Trump and the Republicans, that is now up for grabs and is imperiled. And this is just in: Trump’s recent budget proposal included billions of dollars in Social Security cuts. The proposed cuts were a huge betrayal of his campaign promise to protect our Social Security system. Source: Trump is employing this insidious strategy to attack Social Security — and avoid a massive 2020 backlashCuts in Medicare and your Social Security is just part of the Trump agenda, as are his tariffs which are adding additional tax on those imported consumer items you are buying, and speaking of his infamous tariffs, based on his, “I know what is best” claim when he decided to instigate his tariff plan against the advice of both Democratic and Republican economists and CEOs, the results have been disastrous. “As many people have pointed out to no avail, Trump is all wrong about what trade deficits do. “ Source: New York Times“Tariff Man Has Become Deficit Man - Donald Trump focused his ire mainly on trade deficits, insisting that “our jobs and wealth are being given to other countries that have taken advantage of us.” But over two years of unified G.O.P. control of government, a funny thing happened: Both deficits surged. The budget deficit has hit a level unprecedented except during wars and in the immediate aftermath of major economic crises; the trade deficit in goods has set a record. Trump really has no idea how international trade works.” Source: New York TimesTrump’s tariffs have meant nothing more than an added extra tax on Americans and have cost taxpayers an additional $12 billion that Trump had to dole out to soybean farmers alone for lost crops, and he is now promising the same farmers $15 billion as they face even greater losses than estimated. To cover for his stupidity and wrong-headed Tariffs, “Tariff man” Trump, as he likes to call himself, lies to the American public by telling them that the tariffs are making America richer as they are filling the American treasury, when in fact they are an added tax on consumers, now estimated to cost an American family between $500 and $800. “Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports hurt American businesses; “Over the past year, the US has placed about $200 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods, in part to make Chinese products more expensive so Americans don’t buy them. The administration has also placed steep tariffs on all imported steel, angering other major US trade partners. Source: Farmers are losing patience with Trump’s trade warAs for those coal mining jobs he promised, nothing, zilch, an nothing either in terms of companies being brought back. Try and name even one that hadn’t been in the planning stages prior to Trump being elected. Of course, there have been jobs still fleeing as evident by Harley Davison closed a factory and moved the jobs to Europe to avoid Trump’s job-killing Tariff program of terror. Western Farmers are not only seeing their crops rot in the fields for lack of markets due to Trump’s tariff war, but they are now losing hope and farms as bankruptcies are on the rise. Farm bankruptcies are on the rise. “A total of 84 farms in the upper Midwest filed for bankruptcy between July 2017 and June 2018, according to the Federal Reserve of Minneapolis. That’s more than double the number of Chapter 12 filings during the same period in 2013 and 2014 in Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana.” Source: Farmers are losing patience with Trump’s trade war “ farmers are freaking out. Some are facing financial ruin now that millions of Chinese consumers, who once bought about 60 percent of American agriculture exports, have stopped buying their products. Exports to China from Minnesota dropped about 25 percent after the first round of tariffs went into effect last year” Trump created a $12 billion bailout program for farmers, and on May 17th, he outlined another plan to give them an additional $15 billion. Farmers are far from happy with this approach “it’s not clear if those bailouts will be enough to keep farmers happy. “We don’t want another check from the government,” Isane said. “People don’t realize that once you lose a market, it’s hard to get it back.” Source: Farmers are losing patience with Trump’s trade war“Net farm income has fallen by 50% since 2013 and the trade war has pushed commodity prices down even further. Many farmers and ranchers are on the verge of financial collapse.”…the resolving the trade war with China should be the administration’s “top priority” the Agriculture Department was told…farmers were disappointed to see tensions between the two countries escalate in recent days….the Agriculture Department was told that the president’s proposed bailout package for American farmers would not do nearly enough to stop the bleeding — it “will not make up for lost export markets and long term implications of trade disputes.” “Farmers are hurting,” he said. “It is critical the upcoming trade assistance be structured in a manner that does maximum good for our farmers and ranchers.” Source: Kansas GOP senator writes desperate letter to end Trump’s trade war: Farmers ‘on the verge of financial collapse’GM had to fire 14,000 workers in large part due to tariffs on aluminum and steel, making their cars much more expensive and Ford’s CEO has reported that the tariffs have cost the company an additional $1 billion as of the end of Nov. These costs have to be passed onto customers or absorbed by the company by cutting staff and workers, and it just keeps getting worse day in and day out.. yet this fool has no clue… “Trump’s Trade Grade- We get a look at his transcript on trade policy. It’s not pretty. President Trump’s economic policy: He picks a yardstick to measure the American economy — the trade deficit — that’s mostly meaningless. He spends years criticizing it as too high and promising to reduce it. And under his administration, it surges.” “By just about any measure you pick,” Slate’s Jordan Weissmann writes, “his effort appears to have been an absolute flop.”“He set out to fix a non-problem (a trade deficit) and created real ones including international conflict, higher consumer prices and gross inefficiency in our economy,” The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin writes.The vice president of the National Farmers Union, appeared May 16th, 2019 on Fox News to discuss President Donald Trump’s ongoing trade war with China.“It has been insane,” Edelburg said. “We’ve had a lot of farmers — a lot more bankruptcies going on, a lot more farmer suicides.”“We have more commodities, more grain sitting on the ground now because we lost huge export markets. We’ve lost export markets that we’ve had for 30 years that we’ll never get a chance to get back again. Farmers are hopeful to get their crops in the ground this year but really hope we have a place to sell it come fall.” Source: FOX NEWS May 16th, 2019Edelburg said the Trump administration’s plan to provide up to $20 billion in federal aid to farmers would help, but wouldn’t be a solution to the problem.“We don’t need band-aids. We need long-term fixes to make sure farmers are able to survive. …the way (Trump ) is going about it may not be the right fix.”He was just found guilty of using his charity fund as a private piggy bank and was fined $25 million for defrauding idiots for being suckered into this get rich quick “Trump University” scheme...this and these continuing malfeasances have taken their toll in misdirecting attention, time and required action away from the serious issues that face all Americans.All of this In less than two years, and yet he has also managed to:. Divide the country like no politician ever before, by doing so the worst way possible, along racist and economic lines.. He has marginalized the rights of women, minorities and those of non-traditional sexual preferences.. He has normalized hatred, racism, and misogyny. “We’re a nation coming apart at the seams, a nation in which each tribe has its own narrative and the narratives are generally resentment narratives. The African-American experience is somehow at the core of this fragmentation — the original sin that hardens the heart, separates Americans from one another and serves as model and fuel for other injustices.” Source: New York Times. He has made America and the planet dirtier for years to come through egregious environmental deregulation. Here’s what Obama’s EPA reported: “fracking contaminates water. For instance, they state that "Injection of hydraulic fracturing fluids directly into groundwater resources" causes contamination. ... The EPA also notes that disposing of fracking wastewater directly into surface water contaminates drinking water.” This under Obama’s administration. But under Trump’s crooked EPA appointment of Pruit, who has been forced out of office for personal spending of Government monies,Trump and his EPA lied to the America public and had this to say "Data gaps and uncertainties limited EPA’s ability to fully assess the potential impacts on drinking water resources locally and nationally. Because of these data gaps and uncertainties, it was not possible to fully characterize the severity of impacts, nor was it possible to calculate or estimate the national frequency of impacts on drinking water resources from activities in the hydraulic fracturing water cycle.". He has profited illegally from his position, as have his children and son-in-law.. He’s lowered the level of discourse throughout America where simple bumper sticker bromides pass for intelligent thought.. He has destroyed the country’s relationships with our best and most loyal allies and cuddled up to the world’s most disgraceful authoritarians.. He made truth and facts irrelevant for his base while making intellectuals and the media the enemy of the people. And has told close to 10,000 verifiable lies Back on Jan 21 he was up to 8,158 false or misleading claims. but now it is more than 10,000 Source Washington Post:https://www.washingtonpost.com. He has crushed regulations meant to level the market so that small businesses had at least a small chance of competing against large corporations.. He has overturned financial regulations, making it now virtually impossible for consumers to protect themselves against the practices of shady banks… allowing for another probable meltdown. John Taylor, president of the nonprofit National Community Reinvestment Coalition had warned of the last crash and says "We got into that mess because of the lack of regulation, and now we're talking about making banks less accountable. It makes no sense whatsoever." Source:10 years after the financial crisis, have we learned anything?. He’s made the USA a global embarrassment.. For many businesses and farmers international trade is infinitely more difficult than it was just a few years ago.. He has driven the country to the brink of a constitutional crisis since he refuses to accept or simply breaks the laws of the land at will.. He’s ripped up numerous trade deals and replaced them with either nothing or moved the deck chairs slightly around the deck so that he could proclaim victory when in fact all he really did was to justify another so-called win. A good case in point was the needless drama, cost, and loss of goodwill caused in settling the NAFTA dispute with both Mexico and Canada. With a simple inclusion that didn’t materially alter the plan from the original, Trump then changed the name and claimed victory.. While the Supreme Court has long been known as non-partisan, Trump and the GOP pushed through two hard leaning rightwing justices, and is already been pushing cases through the lower courts in order to overturn numerous civil rights that are favored by 70% of the country and which had been considered untouchable, (established laws can be reviewed and altered as a precedent as Kavanaugh referred to existing laws while lying to ensure his appointment as a Trump surrogate and protector ). Trump is constantly spreading fear and paranoia regarding everything from border protection, threats of nuclear war, murderous gangs, allies raping America economically, and white people being victimized and marginalized by a country made vulnerable by left-leaning Democrats, none of which is true. Trump employs hateful rhetoric for no other reason than to keep his rabble at a constant boil, all to the detriment of civil discourse, fairness, and honesty.. And of course, there is Trump’s magically wall that the Mexicans are going to pay for while claiming that the Democrats are against border security.. when in fact all sane people, no matter the party, don’t support Trump and his magic beans that will somehow grow the wall that the Mexicans have clearly stated for which they certainly will not pay.. Trump colluded with Russia to influence his election and has spent over two years obstructing justice in broad daylight as a cover-up. Now there is evidence that the NRA received monies from Russia to pass along to Trump’s campaign and there is some discussion that even Saudi Arabia may have helped out trump get elected with more foreign contributions, a crime of its own. In order to cover up his deals with Russia, Trump fired Comey, then the head of the FBI, discredited the Justice Department, and then, the heads of the FBI while calling main news media fake and putting forth the claim that the “Deep State,” in fact his own government, were all out to get him.. Trump has attacked the free press time and time again because they have the tenacity to point out the hypocrisy and wrong-headedness of his policies and knee-jerk decisions that are detrimental to America and in direct violation of America’s number 1 constitutional right, freedom of speech.· Trump has undermined and demonized international alliances that have loyally stood with and have gone to war in support of America for decades· He endangered the entire world economy with his tariffs and isolationism· He prompted many countries to seriously look to find alternatives to US’s vaunted support and stability while allowing both Russia and China an upper hand in gaining influence and control of countries that had previously favored the USA.. Trump decided against entering the Trans-Pacific Strategic EconomicPartnership Agreement that would have given America an upper hand and a controlling interest in trade agreements with all the Pacific Rim countries in one fell swoop.. Trump actually turned down the TPP agreement because Obama was for it, and this in the face of the only one thing that Republicans supported Obama on. They, like Obama, saw this as a next to a perfect opportunity for freezing China out of the Partnership while gaining the advantage of winning a free trade agreement with all countries across the entire and the important economically growing Pacific Rim.. Trump mistakenly believed that CHINA was the main partner in the TPP agreement, but it was not until the USA pulled out, that the rest of the Rim countries decided to allow China entry; they had been counting on America to be the go-to leading partner for the entire partnership. Trump was able to snatch defeat from the jaws of an easy victory!. Trump has decided to go it alone and has hit China as well as a number of favored counties with tariffs, a move from which neither the USA or these countries will benefit. The tariffs have already decidedly increased hostilities, bad will, and has already meant countervailing restrictions as both China and friendly countries have raised tariffs on the importation of American Goods and services.. American soybean farmers are already looking at loses of $3.2 billion against next year crops and the risk of possibly losing the very markets that Trump has attacked with unwanted tariffs, as these importers become conditioned to stay with their new source of supply once tariffs are inevitability withdrawn. With $16 billion worth of Chinese imports, global trade relationships are changing in ways that could eventually leave American farmers out in the cold.. Where farmers have worked tirelessly to build relationships with importers worldwide, they find that these hard-won markets are now being taken over by Brazil, Canada, Argentina, or Russia – among other competitors. No aid or financial support will bring back those markets. And even if the trade war ended tomorrow, the damage to important and lucrative relationships with buyers has been done.. Trump consistently oversimplifies the complexities of policy issues to the detriment of those who elected him. As an international senior executive of a major Fortune 500 company, I have seen it close up and visited markets where America had a solid lock on goods and services and I can vouch for the fact that global trade is about more than tariffs. It includes a complex, interconnected network of suppliers, regulators, inspectors, shipping routes, and value chains. It’s built on relationships, cost, and reliability. Unfortunately, Trump only determines policies and makes decisions on one thing, dollars, and cents.. Most importantly, competition is fierce and growing. While tariffs can be turned on and off quickly, building – or reclaiming – trade relationships can take decades. This is what’s really at stake here. Unfortunately Trump, who is looking for an easy win, either doesn’t get it or doesn’t care. Either way, the USA is the loser for Trump’s lack of leadership, interest, care, and understanding.As it stands America” families will be paying an additional $500 to $800 because of the tariffs which, in spite of Trump’s lies that they are being added to the USA treasury, are in fact a tax on families.The May 10th. tariff hike to 25% on a bulk of U.S. imports from China will cost the American economy $62 billion by next year, according to data from Oxford Economics.That total translates to $490 per household. More extreme protectionist policies would cost $800 per household.“While negotiations are ongoing, and the possibility of a deal remains significant, a further escalation of trade tensions would have dire consequences for both protagonists and the rest of the world, says Gregory Daco, Oxford Economics chief U.S. economist” Source: Trump's new tariffs will cost Americans about $500 per household, by one estimate. This is a guy who is becoming more and more isolated and convinced that he doesn’t need counsel or advice as he has supreme confidence in his own ability. This means certain disaster for the country, a definite certainty if there is an emergency whether domestic or international in nature.. Trump is fixated on the mistaken notion that trading partners are responsible for screwing America by holding fast to the notion that both allies and foes are accountable for America’s economic decline because of America’s imbalance of trade. Trump bases this false notion on his take that America is losing economic advantage and by extension, respect for him as president. This is manifested in his rants about reciprocal trade. In turn, he has gone ahead with fights with virtually the world and put in place self-defeating tariffs in order to address the deficit, specifically caused, according to him, by an” imbalance of trade.”And he has failed miserably: WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. trade deficit reached its highest sum ever last year, defying President Donald Trump's efforts and promises to shrink it through his economic policies. ... The government said Wednesday that the U.S. trade gap in goods and services reached $621 billion last year, its highest total since 2008. Source: Associated Press. Trump fails to understand that an American trade deficit with another country doesn’t mean that that country is taking advantage of the USA, it means that Americans want and purchase goods and services equal to the amount of that deficit. in other words, they are getting goods that they want and for which they pay, choosing Chinese over American produced goods. It is called free trade, a position that Republicans held as sacrosanct and inviolable down through the last 70 years.WHAT IS THE TRADE GAP?“Trump often misrepresents the trade deficit. He has frequently labeled it an outright economic loss. “We’ve been losing, on average, $375 billion a year with China,” the president said in February, referring to the 2017 deficit in goods between the United States and China. That imbalance surged to $419.2 billion in 2018 under Trump’s watch. Yet the trade gap isn’t an outright loss. It simply reflects the greater value of what the United States imports compared to what it exports. And it’s not necessarily a cause for concern.” Source: Associated Press.Trump is fixating on the wrong data and drawing the wrong conclusions. This is not in any way to suggest that China is not a problem, they are. But going it alone and shunning the assistance of America’s allies who have the same issues with China while failing to call on the WTO ( World Trade Organization that rules on unfair trade practices) is just another example of Trump’s bull-headed stupidity and his claim that “ only he can fix it”.Americans want and are willing to buy cheap stuff rather than support more expensive American manufacturers. They have a choice and they choose the cheaper goods. For all his misplaced promises and bluster, Trump’s trade policies are a complete bust. “ U.S. deficits in goods with China and Mexico surged to record highs. As president, Trump’s signature effort to stimulate U.S. growth — deficit-funded tax cuts — likely helped fuel the willingness of American corporations and households to spend, including on imported goods. That is especially true at a time when much of the rest of the economic world has weakened and is less likely to buy U.S. goods. The result has been more imports than exports.What’s more, the tariffs Trump imposed on steel, aluminum and hundreds of billions’ worth of Chinese goods likely contributed to the trend: During 2018, American companies that import goods from China appeared to accelerate their spending on them to avoid Trump’s future import taxes. Source: The Associated Press. The turbulence and uncertainty caused by Trump’s trade war have created a geo-economic feeding frenzy. U.S. competitors from Argentina to Ukraine are aggressively working to eat into markets once dominated by American farmers. But according to Trump “Only he can get it done”, “ only he alone can fix it” and fix it he has!!!, Perhaps without repair or at the very best, chances are that it will take years of hard slogging and lower selling prices resulting in lost profits to win back what had been exclusively America’s to lose.· Trump has relentlessly sought to take down or cripple organizations like NATO and the WTO and the UN; institutions that have presented the world with both stability and a bulwark against aggressive and hostile rogue nations· Trump furiously worked at alienating the US’s closest and strongest allies with the mistaken notion that they were screwing America, when in fact America is going through as is the world, a period of transformation where automation and lack of skills have caused high paying manufacturing jobs to disappear or for greedy companies that Trump has supported to move offshore.. With AI ( artificial intelligence) on the horizon and China and Russia spending heavily on research and emerging technology, Trump has no plan and no clue.· Trump has cozied up to dictators and expressed admiration for their strong arm anti-democratic leadership that has emboldened them to become more aggressive without what previously had been the USA’s moral authority that had previously held them in check.. He made his presidency a laughing stock around the world causing damage to America’s standing, moral authority, and leadership position.· He gutted the government and put in place a cabinet charged with tearing down the very Departments for which they were put in charge. This resulted in weakening consumer, environmental, safety and underlying health standards at home while causing a detrimental effect on America’s standing abroad· Trump single-handedly made the USA a country where children are ripped from their families, put in cages and traumatized for life. Because of the lack of planning or care in handling what Trump has labeled “rapists and murderers” from “shit hole countries”, kids have been separated never to be reunited with their parents and now at last count, two young children have died in Trump’s administrative so-called “care’.. These and other anti-immigration atrocities have become so normalized that ordinary people are actually arguing about whether or not it’s acceptable· Trump has created a safe atmosphere for racists and violent nationalists to voice their views and come out of the closet for the first time in 50 years. The result, Hate, and Race crimes are at an all-time high under the Trump presidency.· He has cast doubt as to the trustworthiness of societal and governmental institutions, thereby weakening the very fabric of American democracy.· Trump and his administration have transformed the very concept of truth into a post-modern quagmire of double speak and “alternate facts” worthy of Stalin’s communist rule or Hitler’s propaganda machine, undermining (if not completely destroying) the democratic principles on which the USA was founded· He has upset world order by taking an isolationist approach that previously led to the great depression of 1929. As it stands, America’s isolation position has already had a detrimental effect on the world economy, with many economists pointing to the inevitability of a recession. ‘Not my fault’: Trump struggles to defend his record amid setbacks on immigration, trade, North Korea More than halfway through his term, the president has failed to make progress on a number of his top priorities. Source Washington Post· Trump has overturned not only Obama’s policies but arguably the entire Civil Rights movement and the various progressive cultural, economic and societal gains of the twentieth century, including equal pay for equal work, and the protection of unions for the working man· He has encouraged dissent and destabilizing dialogue among staunch US allies, turning allies and friendly nations into enemies· Trump has used the power of his position to enrich himself, his friends and his family, and now has 17 criminal investigations and two guilty findings, all of which is debasing the presidency and is taking time, energy and effort away from the vexing social and economic issues facing the USA.· He has validated the punitive inhumane actions of oppressive governments all over the world· He has single-handedly relinquished any moral high ground that the US still held· Trump managed to get millions to focus on bullshit Trump instigated dramas and Trump made problems instead of policies and issues that actually affected peoples’ lives and that of their family and friends.. Instead of addressing real issues of concern to all Americans, Trump offered empty promises like, having a massive cement wall built across the southern border and having Mexico pay for it, promising health care for all that would be better and cheaper but with no idea or plan on how to accomplish it while at the same time, killing a health plan that Americans have come to love.. There is no end to his lies now approaching 10,000 Know major lies, all given to distract and confuse a concerned public for no other reason than to cover his malpractices, lack of leadership and personal failings.. And as this writing, he has held 800.000 Government workers ransom without pay for a month in order to get his way to put up a wall on the southern border that the majority of people don’t want, experts have told him won’t be effective, and have advised that electronic devices and an increase in border personnel would be a far superior approach, yet Trump believes he is right and they are wrong..Trump claims there is an emergency situation at the southern border that needs to be addressed by a wall, but doesn’t take into account the fact that experts say the wall if built, would take anywhere from 3 to 5 years to complete. So much for responding to what he calls an immediate and pressing emergency.. Trump keeps lying that there is a crisis at the border even though the number of illegal crossings is the lowest it has been in 30 years. Source: NYTimes: “Border Crossings Have Been Declining for Years, Despite Claims of a ‘Crisis of Illegal Immigration’. Once again, Trump uses lies to make a case that no one other than the most gullible believe, and yet he persists with his lies, threats, and bullying for no other reason other than to get his way for a wall that he considered a joke when told to first use it as a rallying call during his campaign. It was initially intended as a mnemonic device to remind him to mention immigration. And interesting enough, when he was elected and placed a call to the President of Mexico, he virtually begged him to go along with the charade for “ political” purposes… LOL. Trump claims there is a humanitarian crisis at the border, and yes there is, but not the one of which he speaks, there is the one created by Trump himself by locking children up in cages and separating literally 1000’s of kids from their parents never to be found again. Neither Trump or his administration have any idea as to who they are or where they went once they were in the USA.. Trump is currently being investigated as a possible Russian Agent by the FBI… wow, now that is a distinction that Obama nor any other former president can claim.. Trump’s public war on the Mueller inquiry has gone on long enough that it is no longer shocking. Trump rages almost daily to his 58 million Twitter followers that Mr. Mueller is on a “witch hunt” and has adopted the language of Mafia bosses by calling those who cooperate with the special counsel “rats.” His lawyer talks openly about a strategy to smear and discredit the special counsel investigation.. The New York Times reveals the extent of an even more sustained, more secretive assault by Mr. Trump on the machinery of federal law enforcement. Interviews with dozens of current and former government officials and others close to Mr. Trump, as well as a review of confidential White House documents, reveal numerous unreported episodes in a two-year drama.. Matthew G. Whitaker, the former acting attorney general, was put under scrutiny by the House for possible perjury. But Whitaker was just the warm act now that Trump appointed W. Barr as his permanent Attorney General.. Barr has proven himself to be no more than a toady for Trump by acting as his personal lawyer while denying any neutrality and supporting Trump in his every attempt to thwart the House of Commons in their oversight efforts to investigate Trump, his Cabinet and their work in order to prevent the Russians from once again interfering in the upcoming elections by supporting Trump in his 2020 re-election run.. Trump has spent much of his time venting publicly about there being “no collusion” with Russia before the 2016 election, which has diverted attention from a growing body of evidence that he has tried to impede the various investigations. Yet the Mueller report shows at least 185 cases where the Trump campaign interacted with Russians in order to gain an advantage for Trump in the run-up to the 2016 Presidential election.. This is death by a million cuts. The public is exhausted and overwhelmed by the transgressions, lies, larceny, and the illegal activity of this President and his corrupt family. Copious like pebbles on a beach, any one of these misdeeds would have created a volcanic eruption for any other President. Trump has always felt that being outrageous in public is a defense like hiding in plain sight ..thankfully the law does not work that way. The public needs relief.. The facts show that Trump sold out to Putin and the Russians for financial gain and is a traitor to his own country. Do I need to say more?All of the foregoing is what I consider what Trump is “ good at” and the main points of credit that can be honestly listed in praise of this carbuncle on humanity, this open sore called the Trump “presidency”.

'How do insurance companies use the magnitude of survival benefit (either OS or PFS) shown in cancer clinical trials to determine reimbursement?'.Estimated value of a new health technology (drug, device, vaccine, procedure) is usually assessed as a ratio called incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER), the numerator the cost difference between the novelty and reference (comparator), the denominator the patient's clinical benefit, typically assessed in clinical trials by measures such as OS, overall survival, PFS, progression-free survival, and QoL, quality of life (1, 2).However, there is still no international consensus on definition of value when pricing drugs (1). This is further complicated by the fact that value may differ considerably between patient subgroups. In recent years, drug makers have also begun to increasingly exploit the ill-defined, ambiguous yet emotionally charged phrase, 'unmet need' to gain accelerated approval of anti-cancer drugs that may neither prolong survival nor improve quality of life (2, 3, 4, 5).This answer is based on what health economists and epidemiologists report about this issue. Specifically, it outlineshow two impediments are common to cost effectiveness analysis of new anti-cancer drugs regardless of country. Specifically, they’re increasingly approved based on ambiguous and incomplete data (PFS not OS), even as they're initially tested mainly on those with advanced disease (worst case scenario), a patent indication that the drug approval and valuation processes are at loggerheads.Country-specific differences notwithstanding, how the US is an outlier with exorbitantly priced new anti-cancer drugs.Two impediments common to cost effectiveness analysis of new anti-cancer drugs regardless of countryTruism to say the more information at hand, better the decision-making process and outcome. This is why it is important to note that regardless of country, cost effectiveness analysis of new cancer drugs is inherently hobbled by two main inter-linked factors (5, 6, 7).1) New anti-cancer drugs are approved based on data with a much higher degree of clinical uncertainty than that necessary to assess their cost effectiveness. After all, evidence that a new anti-cancer drug could prolong PFS by 3 months is similarly perceived as hugely beneficial by patient and regulatory agency alike. However, such a criterion is inherently ambiguous when it comes to making economic decisions.PFS does not represent a tumor-free state, a cure, and thus isn't a meaningful clinical attribute on its own. Rather, being assessed much earlier than OS on smaller sample sizes and not being influenced by cross-over (8), PFS has emerged in recent years as a surrogate for OS to satisfy increasing patient and regulator pressure for accelerated and expedient anti-cancer drug approvals even though how well PFS matches or predicts OS remains an open question for most types of cancers and stages of disease. As a 2016 medico-economic review concludes (see below from 2)'A literature review on surrogate endpoints in oncology concludes:•that intermediate endpoints tend to overestimate the medical benefit;•that they should be validated for each tumor, each stage and each type of treatment, which makes them difficult to use [3—5]. This partly explains the preference for OS by reimbursement agencies.'This review relied on conclusions drawn by 3 separate meta-analyses, meaning it's based on preponderance of evidence from multiple clinical trials (9, 10, 11). Two other meta-analyses in 2017 concluded likewise (12, 13).2) Data that lead to drug approval are generated from groups least likely to demonstrate maximal clinical benefit. Most new anti-cancer drugs are typically tested as single entities in people with late stage disease, those who've already undergone one or more rounds of other anti-cancer treatments and have often experienced tumor resistance or recurrence. Under such far from optimal circumstances, many new anti-cancer drugs show modest effect. However, if approved, such therapies would more likely be used in combination with others and in people with early stage disease. Would they be more effective under real-world circumstances remains an open question at the time their cost effectiveness is initially assessed.Note that ambiguity about drug efficacy cuts both ways. Either the new drug could turn out to be a potential blockbuster or end up merely a me-too, details that'll only emerge from PME (post-marketing evaluation) on a much larger swath of patients.Thus, cost estimates of tangible benefits of new anti-cancer drugs likely poorly estimate their true value since they have access to only worst case scenario clinical data (tested on relatively small number of patients with advanced disease), even as such data are also often only ambiguous and incomplete (PFS, not OS), a scenario akin to crossing an obstacle course blindfolded and with one arm tied behind the back.It also reveals the extent to which shoehorning outweighs scientific merit in the anti-cancer drug approval process, a criticism applicable across the board, not just in the US but also in Europe for example (4). How is it that what it takes to approve a drug has become so antithetical to what is necessary to accurately estimate its price? No clear answer on what should be a burning question for anyone since anyone could become a patient anytime.Country-specific differences notwithstanding, the US is an outlier with exorbitantly priced new anti-cancer drugsWhen inherent ambiguity about drug efficacy mixes with regulatory capture and learned helplessness of the population as has happened in the US, absurd drug price mark-ups become the name of the game. Perhaps unique among industrialized/advanced economies, the US has largely chosen employer-sponsored competing private insurance as the payment structure for healthcare. Meantime, legislation such as the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act ensured that even government insurance programs such as Medicare were deliberately hobbled from setting drug price controls. How well such approaches work in setting reasonable drug prices is reflected by the fact that despite accounting for a mere ~4% of the world's population, the US accounts for ~40% of global pharmaceutical sales (14).Analysis of drug regulation policy suggests an outsize role for cultural forces in this state of affairs. To quote a recent review (see below from 15),'...in a comparative study of drug regulation in the United States and Germany, Arthur A. Daemmrich analyzed the evolution of the medical and political settings of each country during the 20th century, highlighting points of convergence and divergence.58 Daemmrich noted that legislative changes to prescription-drug laws in the United States often occur in response to public scandals. In Germany, by contrast, changes tend to follow protracted negotiations between lawmakers and stakeholders.58 Drug regulation is highly politicized and adversarial in the United States, but much less so in Germany, where health care is widely seen as a right.'Given initial pricing for anti-cancer drugs is formulated when only inherently ambiguous data is available, the absence of a clearly defined regulatory process for setting price control on drugs in the US has artificially created an anything goes environment rife with absurd mark-ups. Let's examine the situation using a zoom-in, zoom-out approach, zoom-in to consider a couple of specific examples and zoom-out to consider international comparisons.Consider what should be a famous example, Aflibercept - Wikipedia or Zaltrap. Initially approved in 2012 for metastatic colon cancer (16), it was priced at ~$11000 per month, apparently such a preposterous mark-up that it provoked no less an entity than Memorial Sloan-Kettering to unilaterally decide it wouldn't use it. A New York Times op-ed authored by Peter B. Bach, Leonard B. Saltz, Robert E. Wittes, all from Sloan-Kettering, explained their rationale stating that available research showed that another drug, Avastin, was just as effective even as it cost ~$5000 a month (17). A month later, the drug maker Sanofi, the French pharma giant, backed down and started offering 50% discount on Zaltrap (18).As an analysis (5) points out, this example illustrates how transparency (relative cost-benefit analysis of zaltrap), choice (other equally effective options) and leverage (Sloan-Kettering size) are 3 policy levers available to negotiate down drug prices. However, they appear to be rarely used as a matter of course in US healthcare.Consider another famous example, Imatinib - Wikipedia, a drug initially developed by Novartis, the Swiss pharma giant, as a 'goodwill gesture' that unexpectedly became a blockbuster but is now selling in the US for typically 2 to 5X the cost as in many other countries as >100 US cancer specialists bemoaned in a letter to the medical journal Blood in 2013. Note also that recouping development costs plays no role in imatinib price since that was already accomplished in its first two years (2001-03) of global sales (see below from 19, emphasis mine),'Imatinib was developed as a “goodwill gesture” by Novartis and became a blockbuster, with annual revenues of ~$4.7 billion in 2012. Being one of the most successful cancer targeted therapies, imatinib may have set the pace for the rising cost of cancer drugs. Initially priced at nearly $30 000 per year when it was released in 2001, its price has now increased to $92 000 in 2012, 1 despite the fact that (1) all research costs were accounted for in the original proposed price, 5, (2) new indications were developed and FDA approved, and (3) the prevalence of the CML population continuing to take imatinib was dramatically increasing. 16 This resulted in numerous appeals by patients and advocates to lower the price of imatinib, to no avail so far.’Zooming out, comparing anti-cancer drug prices internationally, transparency, choice and leverage appear baked into reimbursement decisions in many countries, albeit to different degrees, but not in the US. See below a summary of such comparisons from a 2016 study, 20, that used proprietary data from the global health data maven, IMS Health, emphasis mine,'In the period 2004–14, global expenditures on cancer drug care rose, and cancer treatment made increasing contributions to improvements in patient survival. Internationally, however, there appears to be a wide distribution in the value obtained from cancer drug care. At the extremes, Japan achieved close to seven times as much return in health gains per dollar spent on cancer drugs as the United States did. This disparity was not only driven by economics: Although the United States consistently outspent other countries on cancer drug care in the study period, it also witnessed one of the smallest improvements in cancer-related health outcomes...the United States can do better. The country outspent all other countries in our study on cancer drugs, despite having the highest level of generic penetration in the market and normal levels of cancer drug consumption. This finding persisted even after we adjusted for population and cancer epidemiology,28,29 and it was consistent across both brand-name and generic drugs, across cancer drug classes, and over time. Growth in US cancer drug expenditures is primarily driven not by consumption—which is key to improving patient outcomes7—but by high prices for brand-name drugs. From the perspective of value, the United States accounted for 55.8 percent of total 2014 cancer drug expenditures across all countries evaluated in this study, yet it received just 12.6 percent of the global total net economic return generated in that year from oncology drug care.'Bibliography1. Panteli, Dimitra, et al. "Pharmaceutical regulation in 15 European countries." Health systems in transition 18.5 (2016): 1-118. http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/68290/7/Wouters_Pharmaceutical_regulation.pdf2. Pavlovic, Mira, et al. "Progression-free survival, overall survival and quality of life: What is their medico economic importance in oncology?." Therapie 71.6 (2016): 625-632.3. Kemp, Robert, and Vinay Prasad. "Surrogate endpoints in oncology: when are they acceptable for regulatory and clinical decisions, and are they currently overused?." BMC medicine 15.1 (2017): 134. https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.1186/s12916-017-0902-9?site=bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com4. Davis, Courtney, et al. "Availability of evidence of benefits on overall survival and quality of life of cancer drugs approved by European Medicines Agency: retrospective cohort study of drug approvals 2009-13." bmj 359 (2017): j4530. http://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/359/bmj.j4530.full.pdf5. Gross, Cary P., and Abbe R. Gluck. "Soaring Cost of Cancer Treatment: Moving Beyond Sticker Shock." (2017): JCO-2017. Soaring Cost of Cancer Treatment: Moving Beyond Sticker Shock6. Kleijnen, S., et al. "Relative effectiveness assessments of oncology medicines for pricing and reimbursement decisions in European countries." Annals of Oncology 27.9 (2016): 1768-1775. https://dspace.library.uu.nl/bitstream/handle/1874/331048/kleijnen.pdf?sequence=1#page=377. Taylor, David. "The reality of economics for oncologists." The Breast 33 (2017): 183-190.8. Michiels, Stefan, Everardo D. Saad, and Marc Buyse. "Progression-free survival as a surrogate for overall survival in clinical trials of targeted therapy in advanced solid tumors." Drugs 77.7 (2017): 713-719.9. Buyse, Marc, et al. "Statistical evaluation of surrogate endpoints with examples from cancer clinical trials." Biometrical Journal 58.1 (2016): 104-132. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bimj.201400049/epdf10. Ciani, Oriana, et al. "Meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials show suboptimal validity of surrogate outcomes for overall survival in advanced colorectal cancer." Journal of clinical epidemiology 68.7 (2015): 833-842. http://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(15)00113-4/pdf11. Ciani, Oriana, et al. "Comparison of treatment effect sizes associated with surrogate and final patient relevant outcomes in randomised controlled trials: meta-epidemiological study." Bmj 346 (2013): f457. http://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/346/bmj.f457.full.pdf12. Savina, Marion, et al. "Meta-analyses evaluating surrogate endpoints for overall survival in cancer randomized trials: A critical review." Critical Reviews in Oncology/Hematology (2017). http://www.croh-online.com/article/S1040-8428(17)30218-4/pdf13. Tan, Aidan, et al. "Differences in Treatment Effect Size Between Overall Survival and Progression-Free Survival in Immunotherapy Trials: A Meta-Epidemiologic Study of Trials With Results Posted at ClinicalTrials. gov." Journal of Clinical Oncology 35.15 (2017): 1686-1694.14. Schoonveld, Mr Ed. The price of global health: drug pricing strategies to balance patient access and the funding of innovation. Gower Publishing, Ltd., 2015.15. Wouters, Olivier J., Panos G. Kanavos, and M. A. R. T. I. N. McKEE. "Comparing Generic Drug Markets in Europe and the United States: Prices, Volumes, and Spending." The Milbank Quarterly 95.3 (2017): 554-601. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-0009.12279/epdf16. FDA Approval for Ziv-Aflibercept17. Opinion | A Hospital Says ‘No’ to an $11,000-a-Month Cancer Drug18. Sanofi Halves Price of Drug After Sloan-Kettering Balks at Paying It19. Experts in Chronic Myeloid Leukemia. "The price of drugs for chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a reflection of the unsustainable prices of cancer drugs: from the perspective of a large group of CML experts." Blood 121.22 (2013): 4439-4442. http://www.bloodjournal.org/content/bloodjournal/121/22/4439.full.pdf20. Salas-Vega, Sebastian, and Elias Mossialos. "Cancer drugs provide positive value in nine countries, but the United States lags in health gains per dollar spent." Health Affairs 35.5 (2016): 813-823. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Elias_Mossialos/publication/301791819_Cancer_Drugs_Provide_Positive_Value_In_Nine_Countries_But_The_United_States_Lags_In_Health_Gains_Per_Dollar_Spent/links/57e410b708ae9e8425a2534a.pdfThanks for the R2A, Kyle Murao.

Question: Will the Canadians look down upon immigrants from developing countries?Answer: Yes indeed,Answer Explanation: In the private talk, there is a lot of bottled-up anger, some people are fully aware some of the human junk is coming to this country. And this a start of going to shi@ hole of the beautiful and advanced western countries including Canada on the top.Please read on:Shut Down Canada’s Chandigarh Consulate And All of Its FraudPunjab is a hot bed of fraud and so, in their infinite political wisdom, the Liberal Party of Canada opened a foreign mission right in the belly of the beast. Opened in 2004 to reward Sikh voting blocs for their loyal support, Canada has the only foreign mission in Punjab’s state capital. With an annual operating budget of around $25 million a year the mission serves no purpose other than to waste Canadian tax dollars by funneling scam artists, the pathetic, the mediocre, the greedy, the aged, all into Canada. But they eventually vote and isn’t that what really matters in the end?As time progresses some Canadians who are close to the ground see these things coming.Possible End of immediate health care as time progresses.Please mark it: The very ailing Health care system will be a thing of the past.Why?????Most of the people coming from the less blessed countries are bringing a lot of dependents, including older people.By the time a family of may ten is overhauled here, these resources are getting less and less.The above remarks are said by a person who has worked in the health care industry for 45 years.There are huge cracks in the system: And there are a considerable number of fake refugees coming through the borders.Some of them or most of them have no intention of working. And mooch the system, it is happening right now.Thanks to a liberal child allowance, a family with six kids and a loving mother do not need to apply for an executive job, as the paycheque and benefits are coming straight to the bank account.Later on, bringing extended families once they know all the loopholes:Of course, some of them will recover druggies to clear the medical before coming here. And then business as usual.This happened in the past in some communities, but it was hidden due to the lower number of these communities.Some communities have a history of vast numbers of family violence.Some communities have a large number of the gang and drug trade activities.Rest assured, these numbers will multiply in huge numbers.Bogus and fictitious business class or investor category:I know one case the guy and his family came under this class, he smirks and tells me: I was supposed to create a job. So ironic he did not work a day in his Canadian life, the family is still here and mooching as usual.Has Canadian Govt done any audit on the following:How many supposedly refugees are working now, and how many mooching the system?When a vigorous Canadian kid born brought educated here is struggling here for his/her livelihood, what are the chances a refugee with a large family(mostly kids) will get a job here????How many are coming with a fake student visa?How many are coming with fake degrees and fantastic experience and all the B.S.?How many are real students and have intentions to finish education or are, in fact, in school/college?How many families are left here to mooch the system when the head honcho disappeared to greener pastures in Asia?This country is standing on the sand and sinking in red ink in national debt by the minute.Immigration is must, but cracks/abuse/this refugee business/fake and bogus students/bogus investors and family reunions and its abuses per sure are sinking the country.Gone are the days when only singles/or small families migrated from Europe or highly educated high achievers came here as students. The Italians built this country, and Ukrainians made Canada a wheat kingdom, and the list goes on. Star students from China and India kept the university labs humming with some of the most brilliant work.With empty spaces in colleges and tones of universities: A Canadian visa is a printing machine for less developed countries. Most of these kids could not get into their own country’s education system. Mom and Dad found a more natural solution to salvage Johny and Jane here on a student visa. That is why you see only Chinese and Indian students wandering the streets in the university town.One landlord told me: He rented a room to a single student, now there are four and sometimes six in a place.Senior Canadians who here for more than three generations, most of them are very well off; they do not care who comes and goes.Junior Canadians who are here zero to three generations should worry about their retirements/health care/and falling standards of civic sense when you see some filthy neighborhood, with dirty mattresses lying around and random person pissing on the wall.This country has become a laughing stock of the world, when our PM, goes dances on the streets of a foreign land:On social media, you see this statement: Immigration to Canada is straightforward.One guy wrote to me: I have been unemployed in India for four years, should I come to Canada? Wow, I did not know Canada is and was land of jobs. I had to do another M.Sc. to get my foot in my trade, in addition to my one M.Sc., and that was close to fifty years back in time.Canadian is sinking by the minute: Not saying the ground reality, being politically correct to its beat it ground: No one tells the truth. How do they feel????Some of them are bringing old personal animosity,/honor killing of their kids/terrorism/ and all related stuff here:One of the other you see processions of one community or the other about the issues of back home.Some settle their personal scores from back home here.Some are bringing their code of conduct here and kill their whole familyThis country has become a joke: And it is like a prostitute who does not care who takes him/her home so far she/he is paid. Well, of course, Canada wants taxpayers.Some of them may be bringing severe contagious diseases:T.B. and the other such conditions are wiped out here in Canada, a few years back in here in Canada there was a severe outbreak of T.B. my very close health care professional told me, the root of that outbreak and I was not surprised.Canada has lost its total identity:These refugees and new immigrants from the less wealthy countries knew very well the dress Code of Canada when they are rotting in the camps. They never ask for their dresses or dangling a dagger on the hip.As soon as they land and find loosy goosy human rights, which were designed in ancient times for reasonable people, now Canadians have to convert their way of life and codes as per their demands.The other day I was at Walmart: I swear it exactly happens to me. I was in an Isle, and two ladies fully covered in black with full Burka, came from each end. Even though I am originally from India, and I have such attire there. I was scared to my last breaths, and I thought they had surrounded me from both ends. And here come guns from both of them. I said to myself: God have mercy on me, let me go on my knees and say my prayers. Due to narrow space and black dresses, fully covered faces, I thought they are black Ninjas. I guess that is how the mind is wired now or maybe too much T.V.The other day I saw a great size dagger dangling on the hip of a Sikh gentleman in Tim Horton, this was no ceremonial dagger, it could kill a good size tiger.I have spent thirty years in food/dairy/flavor Quality Control/Assurance/ process improvements in Canada with my two master's degrees in these fields. I have not seen such a downfall in the foodservice industry of hygiene standards, quality of service, thanks to mostly new coming immigrants. Some without hairnets/beard nets now you may have some hair offering in your favorite donuts, and some cannot even count the change; some cannot run the cash register, and some have no urgency to do their jobs.Welcome to Canada when a convicted murderer gets nine million, why not, keep paying taxes.Unless Canadians throw this present regime out and close some of the councilor services in very corrupt countries, who are printing fake visas, this country is more or less history.Funny thing: New arrivals in strange dresses/customs/foods just landed and demanding their this right and that right.What about the rights of people who have built this nation and are here for generations: They may not give a shi…to your dress code, what about their dress code. Don't you think the tail is wagging the dog????I individual communities very close: These new arrivals do not give two shits to their custom/dress/all the B.S. in their own country, they come here. They love to stir the shi@ here. That is how they make their livelihood in their communities.The difference of opinion:Very affluent Canadian do not give a shi@; it does not affect them one way or the other so far there are slaves on the treadmill.Lowest on the totem pole do not care, so far they get their welfare/dental/medical on time, and enough ditch diggers are digging the ditches and paying taxes.Very High Upper Middle Class, most of them have hands in the cookie jar, may tenure track positions, cushy jobs, great franchises, you cannot touch them. It does not matter to them. Working or Retired from lavish pension and looking in the windows to find out what to do today???The middle class and lower-middle and the lowest middle classes are affected and going to be crushed as time progresses.Edit: One viewer has requested, “Could you post a couple of links to factual information that you have based your assertions on as I find many of the unwarranted.”Here are a few links:Fraudsters use bogus University of Waterloo acceptance letters to enter CanadaWATERLOO — Sarbjeet Singh landed in Canada on August 2012, telling the airport border agent he would be studying for his master's degree in engineering at the University of Waterloo the following month.Investigators say there’s a cottage industry producing fraudulent university documents in some foreign countries.To back up his story, he had a government-issued student visa, and an acceptance letter into one of Canada's most sought after engineering graduate programs.The border agent stamped his paperwork, and waved him through.On the surface, there's nothing remarkable about a young man from India being one of the more than 5,800 international students who come from abroad to study at Waterloo every semester.There was only one problem. The University of Waterloo had never heard of him.Instead, the Canada Border Services Agency allege Singh was part of a sophisticated immigration fraud used to gain illegal entry into Canada.Investigators say Singh had no intention of attending the university, and his behaviour once he arrived was not that of someone planning to study here, according to court records.His Waterloo acceptance letter, used to gain a student visa and eventually a work visa, was fake.Singh was one of 15 people caught in a recent probe by the Canada Border Services Agency, all using fake acceptance letters from the University of Waterloo's engineering program.He was convicted in April under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, and is awaiting sentencing. As a foreign national, he could face deportation.Singh, who told the court he was born in 1991 and has a high school education, managed to fool Canadian officials for years — until he was caught during an investigation into a larger network of Indian men who gained entry using fake University of Waterloo acceptance letters, according to court documents.He arrived in Canada through Edmonton International Airport on August 4, 2012. By that November, he'd applied to change his study permit into a work permit, claiming he had a job offer from a company called Cheema Janitorial Services Ltd. in Edmonton. It was granted.In January 2014, Singh applied for an extension of his work permit, and received it. Since arriving, he's worked in Alberta. There's no evidence he's ever been to Waterloo Region.It wasn't until the CBSA caught another man, Harinder Singh, when he tried to enter the country with a fake Indian passport in January 2016 that they were led to Sarbjeet Singh.Like Singh, Harinder had also obtained a student visa using a fraudulent University of Waterloo acceptance letter, claiming he'd been admitted into the same master's program in engineering.RELATEDB.C. college faculty lead charge against reliance on foreign-student feesDouglas Todd: The hidden costs of foreign student policyForeign students at UBC squeezing out domestic applicants, prof’s paper arguesInternational students in fake marriage schemes to CanadaDouglas ToddInternational students in fake marriage schemes to CanadaUpdated: July 3, 2017The newspaper ads in India are the visible tip of a booming underground industry in fake marriages involving would-be international students.The prize for the “spouse” whose family buys an instant marriage with a foreign student is back-door access to a full-time job in Canada and a fast-track to citizenship.The matrimonial ads normally promise that the foreign students’ sham marriage, plus all travel and study expenses, will be paid for by the Indian families who are determined to have their son or daughter emigrate.The type of Indian student the ads seek is usually a teenage girl, who must have passed an English-language test and therefore be in line to be accepted as an international student.Media outlets in India, such as the Hindustan Times, report there is a “booming matrimony market for ‘brides’ who can earn the ‘groom’” coveted status as a migrant to a Western country.Canada is among the most sought-after destinations for Indian foreign students, say migration specialists, because it is the most generous toward foreign students and their spouses. Australia has also been popular, but recently tightened its rules.Here is a typical recent ad from one Punjabi-language newspaper in India, Ajit:“Jatt Sikh, boy, 24 years old, 5 feet 10 inches, needs girl with IELTS band 7. Marriage real or fake. Boy’s side will pay all expenses.”The ad is listed by a high-caste “Jatt” Sikh male, or more likely his parents. It seeks a contractual marriage with a young woman who has scored well (“band 7”) on an international exam called “IELTS,” the International English Language Testing System. Almost three million IELTS exams are conducted each year.Here is another ad, from the newspaper Jagbani:“Barbar Sikh, 24, 5 feet 8 inches. Finished Grade 12. Looking for BSc or IELTS pass girl. Boy’s side will pay all expenses to go to Canada.”In this ad the family of a lower-caste “Barbar Sikh” is seeking to have their son marry an Indian female with a bachelors of science degree, or a passing mark on the IELTS test, so their son can be allowed into Canada as her spouse.As these kinds of ads illustrate, the parents of the male “spouse” typically offer to cover all expenses for the international student, who often end up attending one of the scores of private colleges in Canada with low to non-existent standards.Shut Down Canada’s Chandigarh Consulate And All of Its FraudShut Down Canada’s Chandigarh Consulate And All of Its FraudShut Down Canada’s Chandigarh Consulate And All of Its FraudCanada’s Sikh Defence Minister, Harjit Saijan, has recently admitted that he lied when he claimed to be the architect of a key NATO mission in Afhghanistan. Saijan is one of four Sikhs whom Trudeau has appointed to his Cabinet. About 1% of Canadians are Sikhs, yet they represent 14% of Trudeau’s Cabinet. Post National Trudeau has never justified this outrageous situation and in this latest Sikh scandal, has refused to fire Saijan.This article describes the rampant corruption at the Canadian Consulate in Chandigarh, the corrupt political environment in India’s Punjab from which Saijan and many of Canada’s Sikhs emerged and the continued Sikh corruption in Canada. This article was written for The Canadian Immigration Reform Blogspot in 2010, but is just as relevant, if not more relevant, today. For the Blogspot’s more recent views on “DIVERSITY”, see the following : Canadian Immigration Reform Blog+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Shut Down ChandigarhI started Canadian Immigration Reform Blogspot with a few goals in mind. Getting Canada’s diplomatic mission in Chandigarh, Punjab, India shut down has been added to the list. Two more stories published in the Toronto Star add fuel to the fire and illustrate why Canada’s diplomatic mission in Chandigarh, Punjab, India does not serve Canada’s interest as it is a complete waste of money.The first one takes a look at the unscrupulous, unethical, lecherous face of immigration consultancy in the Indian state.Sandeep Ohri is a dashing 42-year-old who revels in zipping through the traffic chaos in his gleaming Mercedes, passing billboards touting him as the leading immigration consultant in Punjab state.But Canadian officials see someone else: an extraordinarily brazen and successful scam artist in an industry rife with deceptive swindlers willing to provide applicants with a litany of sham documents — everything from fake airline tickets and doctored bank statements to forged letters from Canadian-based funeral homes.Of the nearly 500 visa applications formally rejected this year, 228 come from Ohri and his firm, OGIC Immigration Consultants.The six visa-section staff who work at Canada’s mission in Chandigarh, Punjab’s capital, review 40,000 visa applications a year from students, family members and prospective immigrants. While official statistics aren’t available, one senior Canadian diplomat estimated at least a quarter of those applications are refused because of fraud.“More would be if the processing was completed, but sometimes you know it’s fraud and just refuse the request and close the file,” the diplomat said.India is Canada’s top source for immigrants simply because of the volume of applications the country produces due to the size of its population. Of those who immigrate, approximately half of them come from the state of Punjab. Punjab is home to the majority of India’s Sikhs. Thus there are more Sikhs in Canada than Hindus. Hindus comprise the majority of India’s population at 80%; Sikhs are only 2% (there are more Christians in India than Sikhs). In Canada, Sikhs constitute roughly 50% of the Indo-Canadian community whereas Hindus are just over 30%.In Punjab, “the average per-capita annual income of $484 is still the highest in the country” which means in relation to rest of their compatriots, Punjabis are not necessarily hurting. They have money.++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++With that said we come to the second article. This one reveals the financial extent to which Punjabis go to send a son over-seas to secure “a better life” for the family. This can be realized in the form of remittances or the eventual importation of the entire family into western countries through family reunification schemes.Now, though the story is presented as a tragic tale of a Punjabi family who only tried to make a better life for themselves, I cannot say I share that sentiment. I believe they got what they deserved. You see, in India western citizenship is a status symbol and the article makes this clear.In the small village of Kapure, it is not about keeping up with the Joneses. It’s about keeping up with the Gills and Dhaliwals.On a narrow, dusty street, one house after the other boasts visible signs of prosperity — a fresh coat of paint, air conditioners, brick driveways and new cars. The children, playing hide and seek, wear Reebok and Nike.The neighbours share not only affluence but also a common source of it — almost every family has a son, son-in-law or nephew living abroad and sending money home.Every family, that is, except the Bhangus.In many villages, almost every house has at least one person in North America, England or Europe.Those that don’t, like the Bhangus, are considered pariahs, says Krishan Chand, who’s been studying the effects of immigration on villages with the Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development. They are excluded from events and, in some cases, parents are not able to find husbands for their daughters.Thus starts the chase where these left-out families will do anything in the hope of sending a family member — usually a son — abroad.This leaves them vulnerable to the smooth talk of unscrupulous immigration consultants. But the prospective immigrant is not a babe in the woods free of blame. They oftentimes participate in the fraud.Typically, agents provide prospective university and college students, and others, with fake bank statements and other doctored documents to support their visa requests, which are usually rejected without proof of one’s ability to pay school fees and living expenses.Others provide their clients with fake passports and visas. Most are rejected.A visa officer at the Chandigarh mission’s consular section told the Star’s Rick Westhead last year that the staff is deluged with applications sent with phony documents. “Over the past year, 85 per cent of employment letters related to work visa applications have been forgeries,” he said.The Bhangus find it hard to believe they are living this nightmare.Prabhjot (Bhangu) says he resisted for some years but then started exploring various avenues, but found he couldn’t immigrate to Canada under the points system, or as a student or on a work permit.The family knew there was a better chance of finding a well-to-do husband for Hardeep (their daughter) who had turned 20, if Prabhjot was abroad.That’s when Prabhjot says a friend from the village who now lives in Toronto introduced him to an immigration agent. The agent promised to take Prabhjot to Toronto for $48,000.Things go downhill from there but at least he escapes with his life. Not so for Amandeep Kaur Dhillion. Remember her? The status seeking impulses of her Sikh family back in India sacrificed her happiness and sold her into a loveless marriage so that they can (could) use her to immigrate to Canada. She was stabbed to death on January 1, 2009, her father-in-law was charged with first degree murder.Punjab is a hot bed of fraud and so, in their infinite political wisdom, the Liberal Party of Canada opened a foreign mission right in the belly of the beast. Opened in 2004 to reward Sikh voting blocs for their loyal support, Canada has the only foreign mission in Punjab’s state capital. With an annual operating budget of around $25 million a year the mission serves no purpose other than to waste Canadian tax dollars by funneling scam artists, the pathetic, the mediocre, the greedy, the aged, all into Canada. But they eventually vote and isn’t that what really matters in the end?Jason Kenney, Canada’s minister responsible for immigration, was in India recently to specifically address the immigration abuses Canada is subjected to by Indian applicants, particularly those in Punjab. Well, good luck with that. Why should India care? Why would India want to curb the steady outflow of non-resident Indians into foreign countries who can then influence domestic politics and the economy to satisfy India’s interests?(So) Forget India. Canada needs to protect itself and the way to do that is to shut down the damn, useless mission in Chandigarh. For one thing it plays into the hands of the immigration consultants in the state by making the execution of their scams all the easier. In this regard, Canada is an accomplice to the crimes.Also, what quality of immigrant is the mission helping to import into the nation when many of the applications are clearly fraudulent? If these people are willing to go so far as to defraud the Canadian government and the people it represents, then they don’t deserve to come to Canada at all. And what kind of Canadians will they be, if you can call them that, if Canadian citizenship is nothing more to them than a status symbol on par with an expensive car and fancy golf clubs?Canada needs to shut down the mission as well as curtail immigration from India altogether. We simply accept far too many immigrants from that country to be of any worth. And of that country, a considerable sum come from one particular region. Indeed, this is characteristic of the immigration system as a whole. Almost 60% of immigrants come from Asia and of that 60%, most come from a few source countries chiefly India, China, and the Philippines. This doesn’t say much about diversity in the immigration system now, does it?++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++For more recent Canadian Immigration Reform Blogspot views on “DIVERSITY”, see the following : Canadian Immigration Reform BlogCanadian Immigration Reform BlogThird-world immigrants need to stay home and fix their s**t and Canada would be wise to deny them residency until they do so. They’ve proven themselves unfit for immigration because if they couldn’t do anything for themselves in their native countries, and for their native countries, then they’re not going to do anything for us. They didn’t come to Canada to solve our problems, they came to Canada to have Canada solve theirs. The third-world is the third-world because of the people of the third-world and by bringing them here you’re inviting what makes the third-world with them. There is no benefit to be had, not real ones anyway, by Canada in allowing mass sustained third-world immigration and if there are any benefits they’re mostly novel, superficial, or fleeting mostly being eaten up by the immigrants themselves. Third-worlders need to stay where they are and fix their countries, not come here and colonize mine. Had they collectively invested the effort and resources they expend immigrating to the West into their native lands instead then perhaps they could affect positive change there and direct their countries to a brighter more prosperous future so that future generations wouldn’t feel compelled to move abroad at all.