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Brian’s Blog

A Mouse between Two Gorillas

Over the years my blogs on macroeconomics have foreshadowed the show down between the US and China. Canada is now collateral damage and I don’t think anyone could see this coming. The conflict between our two countries is more about China projecting its image of power to its people, but what has come to the surface is the difference in the rule of law, of our nations.

Canada has detained Meng Wanzhou, CFO and daughter of the founder of Huawei, on a New York court ruling that invoked Canada’s extradition treaty with the US.  China has retaliated in response by simply capturing Canadians and using laws to express their displeasure. This is something that Hong Kong has been deathly afraid of and are now responding to with estimates of hundreds of thousands, or as high as over a million, people protesting in the streets.
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Oh Canada, The Land of the Free

Oh Canada, the land of the strong and the free. Being free is immensely important to Canadians, but are we? Recent political changes have us wondering just how free we are. Long-standing conservative strongholds have moved to the other extreme and we now have a sharp movement to the left. Small minority groups have more say it seems than the larger Canadian populations, and some provinces seem to be holding others hostage in a confederation that seems to be eroding at the edges, as minority local interests override national ones.

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Profile on Magnaflux & Comet

As a reseller of products and as a sales person, or business development person as they are called today, it is easy to sell products that you believe are as good as any out there. Or perhaps, if not as high quality are a good bang for your buck. However in the NDT industry quality is everything. Our business demands quality. When your job is to ensure quality you better exhibit it or sooner or later someone’s going to question your work.

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The Most Secure Place in the World is in a Prison

I was recently lent a book by a friend of mine. He is a follower of my blogs and picked up on my leanings towards geography as the reason for most of the politics around the world. The book is called Prisoners of Geography written by Tim Marshall, a former foreign correspondent for British Sky News. It is an excellent book and an easy read and though I haven’t finished it yet, I would recommend it to anyone who wants to understand how geography and history shaped and continues to shape, what happens in our world today.

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Profile on Sonatest

In 2004 IR started out in the retail NDT business. Our main focus was Industrial Radiography Supplies and Services and so that was also chosen to be our name. We thought the name said everything and our business plan was to become the best at what we knew, we knew the most about. There was a lot going on in radiography back then: supply problems, new security initiatives, lab issues, and us, IR.

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China and the USA: Confrontation Long Overdue

The interesting thing about geopolitics is not so much how geography dictates the imperatives of the nation state but how those imperatives have led to the relationships with neighbours and even far away nations that may impact their interest in some way. I also find it interesting how the pursuit of the interests of a nation may look to their people to be shallow or callous, even when they are absolutely necessary.

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Perception verses Reality in China

Several years ago I wrote an essay that was entitled Perception verses Reality. In that essay I discussed the CNSC’s problem of what was really true and what the world perceived as true. Governments and their respective agencies, or in this case our regulatory commission, tend to have to deal with their mandates in ways that not only satisfy  the truth of the problem but also the perception of the propaganda they have developed or has been developed by others.

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Is Change Coming, Again?

It has been some time since I sat down and mused on the macroeconomics of our planet. The reasons for this are many and I will go through some of them at the end of this letter but as we are seeing some major changes around the world that are and will have dramatic effect on our lives, so too have we seen great changes at IR. Perhaps not so dramatic as Xi’s consolidation of power in China or Donald Trumps suspected affair with a porn star, but we hope they will make an impact on the experiences you have at IR and in a good way.

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