About
Carnet 49 is a one-person independent journal about what Canada and the United States are building, where it goes and who pays.
Who writes it
W.F., a systems designer with a long-standing interest in geopolitics, directs the journal and decides what it investigates. An AI research system does most of the legwork: it gathers documents, logs events and sources in a structured database, and drafts the articles and their French versions. The author reads every draft, argues with it, sends it back for changes, and approves what is published. More on how this site uses AI.
This is not a newsroom, and nothing here is peer-reviewed. What you get instead is the record: the receipts behind every claim, predictions registered before the results were known, and a public corrections log.
What the journal forecasts
The journal’s central forecast, first published as “both sides win”: on the current course, intended or not, the build-out pays for both countries; the trade war doesn’t. The US gets more supply and more secure supply either way; counted as income, the build-out pays Americans a little but the trade war costs them more, so the US comes out ahead in 2034 only if nearly all the tariff damage is gone. Canada gets a bigger resource base and the capacity to sell elsewhere. By 2034, it comes out ahead unless most of today’s tariffs are still in place; but the decade as a whole leaves it behind, and the longer the tariffs last, the less of it comes back. Our first odds for “both sides win” counted only the US side; the corrections log records the change. Countries coming out ahead is not everyone coming out ahead: workers and businesses caught in the crossfire, on both sides of the border, in steel, aluminum, forestry, autos and the exports hit by tariffs and bans, pay much of that cost. The journal tracks who pays as closely as who wins. It is a forecast, not a settled finding. It carries published odds, is tested as events unfold, and rests on actions rather than statements: laws switched on, projects built, money committed.
Whether anyone in Washington foresaw or wanted this is a separate question. The journal treats it as a labelled thought experiment, tested against rival readings, and never presents it as the author’s belief.
Corrections policy
- Mistakes are corrected in place and logged in the corrections log with the old wording, the new wording, the date and the reason.
- A claim that turns out wrong is not deleted. It is marked corrected, superseded or retracted, and links to what replaced it.
- Odds change only with a reason on record, and each change is visible on the reading’s own page.
- Predictions are scored whichever way they go, including against the journal’s own readings.
To report an error, ask a question or make a privacy request, write to contact@carnet49.ca.
Languages
The journal is published in English and French. Articles are written in English first, then translated; a translation appears once it has been reviewed. The receipts are in both languages too: event summaries, claims and notes have French versions, while quotes and source titles stay in their original language.
Funding
The journal is independent and has no funders to disclose. It carries no ads.
Privacy
No ads, no tracking cookies. The site sets no cookies at all and runs no tracking script. The only things the site stores in your browser are your light or dark theme and your language, if you pick them. Cloudflare, which protects the site against attacks, may set a short-lived security cookie. The privacy policy has the details.