You remember 2009, right?
Six years ago the economy was coming apart at the seams. The feds did two things to try and rescue the moment, and in so doing planted the seeds of the greatest housing bubble in our history. First, interest rates collapsed with the Bank of Canada slashing its marker from over 4% to less than 1%. Second, the government brought in a home reno tax credit, giving people a rebate on installing that critically-important hot tub or desperately-needed granite with Italian tile backsplash.
They worked.
Household debt started to mushroom, and hasn’t stopped since. Aggregate mortgages swelled to $1.2 trillion and personal lines of credit exploded. Average house prices went along for the ride. As we all know, a SFD home in 416 is now $1.1 million and $1.4 million in urban YVR. The average house price in Toronto has increased 74% since then. Personal debt has roughly doubled. And the economy? Meh. Notso good.
In fact, along with things like new first-time buyer tax credits and the expanded RRSP Home Buyer’s plan, our GDP now looks like this:
Yup, that’s right. We’ve truly created a condo economy, in which 13% of all economy activity is related directly to real estate. That’s bigger than the entire manufacturing sector, and swamps the oil and gas business, as well. While the number of factories have been steadily declining, and the oil price crisis has crashed our energy exports, real estate continues to swell. It makes up more of the economy now than it did in California (about the same size as Canada) just before its housing bubble blew up and damn near bankrupted the state.
So, with times once again volatile and disappointing, what does Ottawa do in order to save the day?
Yup. Cut interest rates. And bring in a renovation tax credit.
On Tuesday the prime minister kicked off the current federal election campaign with his first major announcement – a rerun of 2009, allowing people to claim 15% of the renos they do to homes (or even cottages) as a credit against income tax. The $750 maximum gift is expected to cost Ottawa about $1.5 billion a year in lost tax revenue, and the change is proposed as permanent. As in, forever.
Meanwhile, as you well know, the Bank of Canada has cut interest rates in half this year in two separate actions – one in January and the other in July. Unlike in 2009 when the bank rate was north of 4%, we’re now just one half percentage point away from zero. Concurrently, realtor boards in Toronto and Vancouver are tomorrow expected to announce booming sales in July and the highest average prices on record. The negative correlation between rates and real estate values has never been more obvious, and now the feds are throwing more accelerant on the fire.
As this pathetic blog has already observed, since the demise of F and the ascent of Owe, the government party has quietly pushed the real estate agenda back onto the front burner. No longer is the finance minister slapping the wrists of bankers engaged in a US-style race to the bottom. There are no warnings from the floor of the House of Commons about consumers over-borrowing, taking on epic levels of debt or the plunging rate of savings. In fact, just the opposite.
The permanent reno tax credit may bring some roofers, carpenters and driveways sealers into the above-ground economy (they need to issue receipts), but it’s designed to suck more money out of retirement savings and TFSAs and into consumption. As such, like cheap rates, we’re ripping demand out of the future and filling the hole with with debt.
Meanwhile oil at forty-five bucks means the currency is a mess. A forecast this week from OppenheimerFunds is calling for a further 14% collapse in the value of the loonie – which is sinking along with the Australian and New Zealand dollars. Oppenheimer thinks the Bank of Canada will keep cutting, even as the Fed does the opposite. “Compared to the U.S. talk about raising rates and tightening policy, the commodity currencies are going in the exact opposite direction. These currencies are not cheap by any means.”
Can a nation of people spend and borrow their way into prosperity?
Better ask your candidate.
224 comments ↓
Interestingly, the XBRQ stochastic model has been ridiculously accurate in predicting movements in the Canadian/US dollar exchange rate over the last decade – see: http://postimg.org/image/e7xce563h/
The XBRQ model now predicts the loonie approaching $0.40 U.S. by the end of this year! Scary stuff.
MP paid big price for speaking out in Harper’s Ottawa
Garth Turner recounts the events that led to his ouster from the Tory caucus.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2008/05/27/mp_paid_big_price_for_speaking_out_in_harpers_ottawa.html
Upset with the Conservative government’s handling of the F-35 jet purchase, Brent Rathgeber wrote a blog entry critiquing it. It was an innocuous act, save for one detail: He was a Conservative MP himself.
Soon after, the phone rang, with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office on the line demanding the blog post be taken down. Mr. Rathgeber’s aide refused. “You don’t understand; I am calling from the PMO,” the staffer replied.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ex-tory-mp-describes-pmos-tight-control/article20464480/
A Bad Equilibrium & How Speculative Distortion Ends
John P. Hussman
http://www.hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc150803.htm
That is all.
Interesting how the home renovation tax credit – originally intended to be a “temporary stimulus measure” is now going to be permanent. Does that mean that we should assume that the weakness in the economy is similarly permanent?
What about the fallout from the Home Capital Mortgage company’s revelations last week? Has there been any call to audit the mortgages insured by CMHC? or are the rest of the bankers ‘whistling past the graveyard’?
With all these job losses, are the company names on those letters of employment even current?
When an airplane crashes, and the cause is found to be related to the design of the aircraft, all the other planes of that make and model are inspected, to see if they too, contain the same problem. After 2009, is it too much to ask that we treat the financial system with at least the same degree of care as they use in aviation?
Alberta forecasts deficit in the range of $5.4-billion
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/alberta-forecasts-deficit-in-the-range-of-54-billion/article25834926/
So I looked at that bar chart and thought, “Hey, RE plus property management plus construction only totals about 20%. Expected worse.”
Then I remembered I live in the Lower Mainland. It’s probably 40% here. And there aren’t any bars on that chart for drugs and money laundering.
This home Reno tax credit really irked me this AM. Its so short sighted and irresponsible I lost any inclination to vote for Harper. I’m undecided and may just spoil my ballot. I’m gonna stay liquid, ride this out and try to buy TSX at the bottom.
“Cut interest rates. And bring in a renovation tax credit.”
and we can’t forget the just introduced 100% rental suite revenue inclusion for borrowers to goose things even more.
Hey Loonie Watcher… you got a link for that? I’d be curious to read up on this thing.
Another reason to not vote is c51
Justin supports it
The best Mulcair can muster is ‘It might be uses against the governments
Political enemies‘ That would be him.
No one cares about taxpayers
Couldn’t wait to see what you would say tonight Garth! This is truly nuts. Its the ultimate in short term thinking. Harpie also said today that people taking on large debts is a sign of CONFIDENCE in his economy. In Toronto and Vancouver it’s FEAR in his economy. Fear of being left out! I know because I have kids who are being sucked in. My son-in-law actually got some guy to pay him $1000 dollars for his place in line at one of those Builder preview places, before they opened the gates.
Maybe Harpie can make the real estate business half of the economy. That will do great things for our balance of trade. Oh wait, nobody seems to care any more.
Anyone remember how Ottawa changed the capital gains tax rates in the late 1990s because lots of little old ladies were staring down at a huge tax liability and would lose their OAS if they sold their BCE-derived Nortel shares?
This proposal by Harper et al strikes me as similar. Basically a post-bubble tax inducement to invest in an over-invested asset class that is rapidly losing value as the Canadian economy plummets. With the feedback loop of rising real estate prices, rising debt, and rising wages, now going in reverse.
Ah 2009
It was a great vintage
To buy a SFH in c02 on 3×1 leverage
Or to have bought any financial asset on leverage for that matter.
Broken record time on my part:
The election and recession will be about job losses.
When enough people lose their jobs or are in fear of losing their jobs you can offer 100% reno deductions and no one will spend money on renos unless they have an emergency to fix.
People only take out mortgages or spend a chunk of their savings on a downpayment if they have job security.
All bad recessions have large job losses. Wait this Friday and for the September job numbers. By then Harper will have changed his tune and it will be too late.
I’m excited for the debate to see if Mulcair can capitalize on all these breaks and cuts the Conservatives are making. Mulcair has been in training and someone tell Trudeau not to bring out the red shoes like Ignatief did last election! Stephen seems like he is getting short with the reasons why his party is the best party. His tone seems different.
I hope Mulcair won’t claw back the TFSA!
Nice Chart, If I do say So Myself
It’s flattering to see my chart return for the second time to greaterfool.ca. The data is from Stats Canada but I created the chart.
Here’s link to it that provides a link to the source data.
http://www.investorsfriend.com/canadian-GDP-canadian-imports-and-exports/
I first created that chart in 2007 and have updated it annually ever since.
The XBRQ model now predicts the loonie approaching $0.40 U.S. by the end of this year! Scary stuff.
That’s a bit crazy isn’t it?
#2 Peter W on 08.04.15 at 5:48 pm
_________________________
Thanks for that Toronto Star link. Printed a copy for myself as a partial reminder of everything that is currently wrong with this country.
I’ve always underestimated the PMO (aka, the Boys in the Short Pants) and their total ideological-driven disdain for everything Canadian in Canada.
It’s difficult to believe any group of human beings can be wired that way. Then again, there are people who kill wild animals for a photograph, instead of just taking a wild animal photograph.
Now on the ‘official’ campaign trail, every time Harper arrogantly addresses Canadians as ‘friends’, he makes me want to vomit.
And 13% is just the part directly attributable to real estate. If you remember that something like 60% of construction is housebuilding and 80% of finance is mortgages, you can add another 10% to that 13%. So almost a quarter of the economy is focused on real estate directly or indirectly.
If election was today, minority government with Liberals as king makers?
http://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/poll-tracker/2015/index.html
“Can a nation of people spend and borrow their way into prosperity?”
——
It seems to work for the US for now – until their even bigger debt bubble pops.
Somebody commented yesterday that Toronto and Vancouver house prices will go up as the Canadian dollar devalues. Do you agree with that?
For that reason alone, of course not. — Garth
If Garth hasn’t already given us enough reasons to vote out Harper’s Conservatives, this might: since Harper took office in 2006, the national debt has soared by 27% ($131 billion).
http://t.thestar.com/#/article/business/2015/08/03/why-people-watching-their-budgets-are-also-watching-mulcair.html
#10 Bob Santarossa
Wait this Friday and for the September job numbers. By then Harper will have changed his tune and it will be too late.
—-
The home reno roofers, carpenters and driveways sealers are major part of the Conservative self-employed small business constituency, why wouldn’t Harper throw a bone for them before election?
The balanced budget promise is out of the window already, you have to hang on to power somehow and it does not come for free.
#6 Victor V
That’s only $1350 or so for every man, woman and child per year. No biggy, when the NDP leave office in 4 years (which they will), it’ll only be another $21,000 of debt for a family of 4. I am sure they can all afford it.
I am being sarcastic of course. That rate of debt increase is clearly unsustainable for very long. It clearly highlights that without oil prices in the $100 range Alberta is unsustainable. And worse, net migration is likely to go negative if things don’t turn around soon.
I think it was Marc Faber that said in an interview recently “prosperity based on resource extraction is seldom permanent”. I think that is mostly because the mines and oil wells eventually run out and the trees are all gone. At that point the towns built on extraction dry up and blow away too. Alberta is not out of oil & gas yet, not by a long shot, but the stuff that can be produced for $45/bbl is all legacy and in decline.
So what happens next is despite massive layoffs, several major names are going to go broke. The Buffets of the world will buy up the carcasses on the cheap and simply wait for the next cycle. But by that time the Alberta government will be simply broke, unable to support basic services for a population that is mostly trying to move to the States.
PS BC won’t be far behind. they depend almost entirely on resource extraction same as Alberta, just not as high a percentage is oil & gas. But everything else they produce is in the toilet too. Try and sell a tree on the international market now and see what you get? You may as well use it for firewood. How about met-coal? It’s not $350 a ton anymore I can assure you that the collapse has been way more dramatic than oil. Copper? Flush. Aluminum? Pass the paper my stall is out. Power prices? I think I need some Imodium.
#1 Loonie Watcher
$0.40? That would be the end of the world as we know it.
Garth, do you believe there is any hope for some rational politics to rescue the economy in the next election or were all the options exhausted already?
When 70% of potential voters are homeowners…
2015 Party Campaign Policy #1:
– Take the info and advice Garth Turner provides, do the opposite and manipulate the masses with it.
Imagine if this epic economic melt down happened during a ten year majority ruling of the financially incompetent Liberals or the commie NDP?
The “fiscally conservative, responsible Conservative party” and the “balanced budget legislation” turned out to be just an ideological joke, when facing reality.
#3 Peter W
More people should be paying attention to Dr. Hussman. That was a good posting.
In fact his timely tracts should be mandatory study for all of those sweaty real estate virgins who want it all and want it now.
There is also a message for indebted governments everywhere. Bu they’re not reading Hussman either.
Both cohorts could also perhaps, if they are not complete and utter pagans, read the Bible: “…lead us not into temptation…deliver us from evil…”
But governments being the creatures they are can do pretty much anything, but the aforementioned sweating real estate entitlement bunnies, cannot.
But the latter still doesn’t know that.
Many think if the government can print its way out of trouble it can pass along some of that filthy lucre to them.
But THAT WON’T HAPPEN; regardless of who wins the October 19th election.
No dice Bat-Man.
The government also realizes that it can’t advise the financially incompetent among us just how they might manage their own money. That would involve the practising of a certain amount of hypocrisy, right?
So those in charge simply cook up another batch of yummy cool-aid, tax incentives in this case, and Bob’s yer Flaming Uncle, that’s fer sure…
That policy could be seen as cynical, but it might just work for the Tories.
Take a look at the anti-Trudeau and Mulcair ads being issued by the Conservatives: they’re great!
Huge numbers of generally older voters, who have their financial worlds in good order and will “go Tory”, may make the difference in favour of Harper & Co.
But if the vote goes to one of the two main Opposition leaders, the financial angst of those sweaty real estate know-nothings will not improve.
As I’ve already mentioned, they will NEVER be bailed out.
Instead they will sweat bullets. They will whine and cry but they’ll STILL be stuck with a trillion dollar debt and rebellious taxpayers will refuse to help.
“…for thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory…”
You figure out the rest…
Hey…if the Dippers are tabling the largest deficit budget in Alberta history….why can’t a federal NDP government? We’re a long way from 100% taxation…..there’s 18% still left in peoples pockets…..that’s not good.
Lets raise taxes…give the unions a raise….to hell with starving seniors and…..don’t you already despise those people who shop across the border and go on vacation?
Bring the loon down to 25 cents….lets have more street walkers and boys peddling rickshaws…..just like Cuba. Sex tourism is the future for Canada.
Right now we’re restricted on how many poor Cuban boys we can marry and bring home as ‘dependents’…..that’s no good. A civil service wage can support a vacation a month for hookers in Cuba….why not Vancouver. If it gets poor enough maybe we can start promoting gaycations for foreign men seeking Canadian boys in Waterloo.
You’re on track Mr Poloz….beggar the country…so that other countries can bugger us.
“Oppenheimer thinks the Bank of Canada will keep cutting, even as the Fed does the opposite.”
————————————-
Umm… keep cutting what? There’s practically no room left. Could rates go negative in Canada?
#24 Little Dipper on 08.04.15 at 7:03 pm
“If Garth hasn’t already given us enough reasons to vote out Harper’s Conservatives, this might: since Harper took office in 2006, the national debt has soared by 27% ($131 billion). ”
…….
Where did you see Garth even suggesting to vote for any other party?
Some of the richest and best looking people I know are realtors and realtresses.
They’re hot, have huge mansions with granite and all the toys.
Maybe the rest of you basement dwellers should look into becoming realtors.
In the past, when Garth was growing up, one became a lawyer or doctor to move into the upper class.
Now being a real estate agent is where the action is. And just 4 months of coursework required.
Different time different economy.
Get up to speed, or be left behind.
So, was this reno announcement by Harper et al to take place immediately, or was it to occur if/when they get re-elected? Election promises are easy to make – keeping them, now that is another story……
“So, with times once again volatile and disappointing, what does Ottawa do in order to save the day?”
Does it really matter who wins the election?
Really? what can they do?
They are all puppets of the elite and we are just plebs in the big picture but:
WE GOT FREE HEALTHCARE!
Don’t worry, Toronto will introduce some new land transfer tax or real estate buying, selling tax to so call cool the so called Toronto real estate market, right that was the reason.
Don’t worry Ontario Liberal Wynne, Sousa team will add new taxes for infrastructure, environmental user fees to build up the condo, city economy and that will counteract against any savings.
This is not including all the old and new taxes, deductions from your pay, ORPP, health taxes.
Don’t forget those 3 times increased in 10 years water rates, electricity prices etc.
Look at this video on BNN, http://www.bnn.ca., Bank of America, Merrill lynch economist is saying we could soon have 0% or negative Bank of Canada rate plus bond buying.
Interest rates going down!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Is it now obvious to you guys that the bank of Canada will not raise rates. Doing so would be suicide for Canada.
I would only advise you buy a house if you have another foot in another country. I was talking recently to a family from India who bought a house. I asked them what is housing crashed or they lost their jobs. Their answer was simple.
We will go back.
Destroying ones credit here means nothing in India. It China? I feel sorry for those that are just tied down to one country.
HEY!! I thought I was going to learn something new here?
I very well remember 2009. I was then 58 years old, trying to kill the last of a mortgage before the US went totally TU (tit’s UP as in dead livestock).
While I still HAD a job, the last dam thing /i was gonna due was borrow money! Iu was seeing then how HARD it was to get money, jobs evaporated, and unless you were fluent in Cantonese, or Mandarin you are not likely to find one. While the US markets turned from bull-sahitsky stink land in March of that year, and yours truly put his then 100% bond allocation into the market to ride the rocket back up -though not knowing at that moment- the recently elected Obama- would never prosecute his Bankster financiers I did good!! REALLY GOOD!
Today, I am not quite so certain. I paid the dam mortgage. Retired at 60 as anticipated. So far so good…
That was at the beginning of 2012. Enough in the Bank, and a modest US Fed pension to pay for shit. No debts.
Left it in the markets, the bitch nearly doubles by the start of 21015.
Now, we are getting a tad nervous! Trees NEVER grow to the heavens! 2015 the dam thing has done diddly shit…so, what have you done for me lately, he says?
The thing is still ok don’t get me wrong. Oil sucks, utility stocks are a curse this year, and manufacturing sucks.
So where does the growth in 2015 and 2016 come from?
Tree huggers? I don’t think so. Don’t get me wrong I like tree huggers and water conservationists, but they do not pay spendable dividends.
The retired Boomer is looking for a return on investment here. OK… Bonds don’t pay CRAP!! Stocks in the Best case pay maybe 4% RE Trusts about 7% if they have a future.
I am whining here. After a lifetime of work, my body is tired, the old lady ugly my kid a worthless flake. OK, I avoid mirrors since I look like her… Time for a new cocktail.
Your turn…
#8: “I’m undecided and may just spoil my ballot.”
**************
I’ve done that before. Unfortunately, no one picks up on it or cares….
“As this pathetic blog has already observed, since the demise of F and the ascent of Owe, the government party has quietly pushed the real estate agenda back onto the front burner. No longer is the finance minister slapping the wrists of bankers engaged in a US-style race to the bottom. There are no warnings from the floor of the House of Commons about consumers over-borrowing, taking on epic levels of debt or the plunging rate of savings. In fact, just the opposite.”
According to threehundredeight, the Member of Parliament for Eglinton-Lawrence is forecasted to come in Second place in this upcoming First Past The Post election.
“So, with times once again volatile and disappointing, what does Ottawa do in order to save the day? Yup. Cut interest rates. And bring in a renovation tax credit.”
Which proves once again the vast majority of sheeple have an IQ of roughly minus thirty (give or take). It’s their debt, not mine.
*
SMan — Oh btw, which one’s Pink? Sound up — a nice piece of string music, proving yet again that humans are really only good for buying things they cannot afford. Robots rule! Plus . . .
“The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson.” A letter written by FDR to Colonel House, November 21st, 1933 ( Totalarian Collectivism ).
#12 Loonie: “Harpie also said today that people taking on large debts is a sign of CONFIDENCE in his economy…”
********************
You gotta remember…Harper is a very disturbed man.
DELETED (Anti-Chinese)
The faster this corrupt, debt fuelled fraud of a system collapses the better. My biggest fear is the inevitable NDP majority but the only bright side is it will hasten the end of this junk economy
The bank of Canada, government and senior execs of the RE and finance sectors need to be prosecuted and all those among us who borrowed like mad deserve to get wiped out
The value of the CAD going down is a tax on all savers and those who opted to avoid being trapped into this neoliberal fraud
The CAD dollar trend is down and we will likely see .60 by the end of the decade although there could be one more sucker rally up to .7&-80 before the low
And all these three clowns running for office can think of is the same as always – more junk economics
JO
70% of all Canadian households have a vested interest in keeping the market value of their primary asset as high a possible. It should come as no surprise when a political party with no concern for the future of Canada decides to pander to this audience.
When confidence games begin to unravel the only solution is to ‘double down’ and try to keep the game going long enough to gain the last drop if advantage.
The theory behind a tax reduction for home improvement costs is that even as real estate values decline the value of renovations will be reflected in the eventual market value. Anyone who watches all those home renovation and house flipping shows knows that an investment of $20,000 increases the market value by $40,000. It is just that easy!!!
Encouraging Canadians to invest in real estate that is already over-valued will make money for all players in the real estate sector of the economy but will offer little long term benefit to Canadian homeowners.
The message from the Conservative Party seems clear. No need to save for retirement just sell your dwelling when the time comes and all will be well.
Note to Steve and the gang!! Canadians owe $1.2 trillion in mortgage debt and the last thing a responsible government should do is totally ignore the impact of a pending price correction on Canadian households.
Offering free cocktails to passengers waiting for lifeboats on a sinking ship takes cynicism to a level even Machiavelli might have balked at.
VIDEO: Harper promises permanent home renovation tax credit
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/news-video/video-harper-promises-permanent-home-renovation-tax-credit/article25833103/
But, this “permanent home reno tax credit” is not even a sure thing…..just an idle “promise” from a PM we are supposed to trust!
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-stephen-harper-suggests-next-2-budgets-too-tight-for-more-spending-1.3178584
Conservative Leader Stephen Harper suggested this morning that the federal government’s budget is going to be tight for the next two years, telling people at an event in Toronto that a tax credit he’s promising if he is re-elected wouldn’t be implemented until midway into that mandate.
Harper and other Conservatives have so far maintained the 2015-16 budget will be balanced.
But answering questions about a new campaign pledge to reintroduce a home renovation tax credit, Harper said Tuesday it wouldn’t be introduced right away.
“We’re targeting this for mid-mandate. I think if you look at the fiscal track, we’ll have that fiscal room. But we’ll be sure that it’s affordable and sustainable before we bring it in,” Harper said.
Hard to not be part of “vote for anyone else” on hearing this. There may be no short term way out of this economic pit being dug.
They’ll still pay cash for labor to avoid the gst.
They’ll write off the material.
Garth,
I don’t see why you believe Harpers strategy of lowering rates and increasing debt won’t work. He’s got ten years tops left in politics. I am sure he can keep it going that long.
Hey Smoking Man… do you like Kurt Vonnegut’s stories?
I have updated my 4 interest rate charts: http://www.chpc.biz/
The 10yr less 2yr spread (on the Yield Curve chart) has been widening since the beginning of the year.
The last major widening of the 10-2yr spread (rising 200+ bps) in 2007-2009 saw the TSX Real Estate Index Price Momentum plunge into the March 2009 Pit of Gloom.
Oh the Humanity…
#24 Little Dipper on 08.04.15 at 7:03 pm said:
If Garth hasn’t already given us enough reasons to vote out Harper’s Conservatives, this might: since Harper took office in 2006, the national debt has soared by 27% ($131 billion).
http://t.thestar.com/#/article/business/2015/08/03/why-people-watching-their-budgets-are-also-watching-mulcair.html
*************************************
27% increase in debt in 9 years! That’s a whole 2.7% compounded annual.
GDP has grown faster than that in nominal dollars.
So debt as a percent of GDP is down.
So you the conservatives have done good?
Remember national debt is not something to ever be paid off. It’s just not. It’s plowed forward forever. Get used to it.
It matters when the Conservatives derided the Liberals for doing the same. Power changes everything. — Garth
You can also add in a big chunk of manufacturing as part of RE as well. All the windows, doors, cabinets, granite counter tops, etc are manufactured here in Canada before they go into a house or condo.
Thats why they are going ‘all in’ on RE. They already know there is no turning back other than a crash and they are just hoping to kick the can past the election.
The sad part is Mulcair and Justin would do the exact same thing if they are elected. Mulcair even has bigger plans for juicing the housing bubble:
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/06/06/mulcair-promises-city-housing-costs-reform.html
Emanuella Enenajor from Bank of America says Canada could easily cut again, even during elections.
http://www.bnn.ca/News/2015/8/4/Bank-of-America-Merrill-Lynch-warns-Bank-of-Canada-could-resort-to-QE.aspx
I’m going overweight REITs. Bought more Brookfield Properties. Ticker BPY.UN.
If you’re hell bent on not buying a house in Toronto, that’s another way to gain from low rates. You don’t have to become a realtor.
I am converting and old combine into a American money printing machine today.
PB43
15% tax credit barely covers the tax you would have to pay on a legit project with a receipt. Underground contractor economy is still safe.
A story in the Vancouver Province has pointed out that BC is a centre for ‘money laundering’ from Asian sources.
One has to wonder how a Chinese Citizen, who’s allowed to take a max of 50,000 RMB out of the country, can buy a $2.9 million dollar condo, here in Vancouver – cash.
Uh, try moving money in the States and you will get caught – here in porous ole Canada, we seem to ignore obvious misbehaviour, and worse, the crooks make off like, well, crooks.
Crazy!
Advice for you Canadians. Buy Australia property, probably most expensive in the world but will keep rising, so always a good time to get in, I think it is government guaranteed. Reasons for confidence in Australian property: 1. Shortage of land in Australia. 2. Best quality builds in the world. 3. We are called the lucky country. 4. In the papers yesterday, ‘Increase in Foreign student intake, which will underpin and increase property prices.’
What would a left leaning government do in similar times? Look south of the border. Obama is increasing the US debt at 3 times that rate.
http://dailysignal.com/2014/12/03/since-obama-took-office-federal-debt-increased-almost-70-percent/
A ‘Watershed’ moment today. Stephen Harper called the election of the NDP in Alberta a “disaster”. Threw Rachel Notley under the bus in an attempt to secure Alberta votes. A singular error. Ungentlemanly. A moment Albertans will not forget. How dare he question our recent electoral decision in such an arrogant way. How dare he think Albertans are not giving her the chance she deserves. Pale (even in mid summer), beady, blue eyed sickly looking bastard. Kiss the PM office goodbye. I have always voted Conservative. For reasons of fiscal management and good governance. Not about troops in the Ukraine and numerous other instances of international posturing about which we need to shut our Canadian cake hole. If the word ‘disaster’ needs to dragged out how about applying it to the debacle of the Keystone XL Pipeline, so lovingly referred to by our inglorious leader as a “No Brainer”. What becomes increasingly clear is that the big ‘no brainer’ in the room is that Canadians want regime change. We are tired of the condescending bully known as Stephen Harper. Even Laureen and her folksy charm is not going to save him this time.
Sorry, Garth. Recognize this is a financial blog, but expect there will be more outrage from the blog dogs as we lurch towards the inevitable car crash of a Federal election.
Canada’s housing bubble is significantly bigger than the 2006 US bubble.
Canadian mortgage lending standards are a lot looser than those in the US as the American gasbag reached maximum inflation in 2006.
The bigger the bubble and the looser the lending standards that were in place to inflate it, the bigger the price correction.
Recent moves to add more fuel to the Canadian real estate market will guarantee a deeper and more severe price correction in Canada.
These moves have made it clear that the Canadian economy is in far worse shape than what most Canadians could possibly comprehend. A weak economy is bad for house prices.
Canadian 5-year fixed mortgage rates will begin to move higher this fall at a rate of approximately 1% per year as they follow American rates.
Several Canadian housing markets are already in decline despite record-low rates and Canada’s lax lending standards.
Housing bubbles don’t solve a country’s long-term economic problems. The opposite is true.
Canada’s (2009) economic problems were supposed to have been solved by now, but that isn’t the case.
Instead of an economy strengthening and on the way back to normal (which is what the US has), Canada has a faltering economy with skyrocketing (record) debt levels.
Economic problems caused by too much debt cannot be solved by even more debt.
Canadian house prices will be falling in a weak economic environment with rising rates.
Canada’s housing price correction will be deep. Adding more fuel to the market will make that correction even deeper.
Dear Pathetic Blog : It is interesting that in Jan 2010 the BOC rate was even lower than it is now.
Yup. And things got worse. — Garth
The “law” you are referring to is Chinese law. Chinese laws are not applicable in Canada. You can bring as much money as you like here (or to the US). The “50,000 RMB out of the country” law you cite is as relevant as a Saudi burqa law in Canada. We do not enforce other countries laws here. Nothing illegal about bringing money into Canada as far as Canadian law is concerned.
Catastrophe is insistently knocking on the door, and Harper will do his best to let it in. Financial calamity for millions of Canadians is now only a few months away. The dollar will be close to .50 by the new year. Unemployment will take off. Here’s another chain closing.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/laura-clothing-chain-files-for-creditor-protection-1.3179305
Meanwhile the environment is collapsing evn faster, with California fires leading the way. They thought the fire might double in size in about a week. Instead, it took only five hours!
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/02/california-wildfire-lower-lake
Lake Erie is turning green again as I write, and Toledo will be even worse off than last summer.
Food shortages will hit us in weeks as massive drought deepens.
Chaos in Europe has only started this summer – much worse to come this year.
Wars are percolating all around the world and will soon involve the west much more.
2015 is heating up in a truly ominous way.
ATTENTION #1 LOONIE WATCHER
I googled your XBRQ but didn’t get anywhere. Could you out of the goodness of your heart, help? I shall especially recommend you in my prayers to St.Matthew, who is both the Patron Saint of Money AND of Money Management.
[Truthfully though, I am aware that they still use abacuses (abaci) in heaven and haven’t progressed much in economic thinking beyond the reconfigurations necessitated by the consequences of the 3rd crusade.]
The patron Saint of the Canadian National Currency, St. Charlie Farqharson, was declared apocryphal and summarily expunged from the hagiography the day before I went to the bank and stuffed many Loonies into my $US acct. No volunteers have come forward to replace him. (Some of the Templars who were asked almost died laughing.)
“Snake-Eyes Harper” blabbered on at this morning’s press conference about how “Canadians know how increasing government and personal debt is not the answer”…or, words to that effect.
Such a phony.
This sociopath will stop at nothing to remain in power.
$35 million in cuts to the National Research Council, Refusing to handover documents related to Afghan torture, Election Spending scandal: “The Conservative Party had reached their national advertising limit of $18.3 million, so it transferred $1.3 million dollars to 67 riding campaigns that had not hit their own $80,000 limit. The party then had the ridings immediately return the money to the party, claiming that it was being used to purchase advertising and creating receipts on photocopied letterhead of the ad company, Retail Media, used by the national headquarters. Retail Media’s CEO told investigators that “the invoice must have been altered or created by someone, because it did not conform to the appearance of invoices sent by Retail Media to the Conservative Party of Canada with respect to the media buy.” The ads were arranged for by party headquarters and were identical to its national ads except for small print identifying the local candidate.
Undermining access to Information Act, controlling messages and managing the media, attacks on women’s rights and equality, “He has steadfastly defended cabinet ministers, such as Tony Clement, Bev Oda, Peter MacKay, Christian Paradis and Lisa Raitt, over incidents involving G8 slush funds, doctored documents, private use of government helicopters, ethics breaches — and possibly lying to Parliament and the Canadian public.”
I do find the occasional “conspiracy theories” to be interesting.
Hmm, I wonder if Harper is the TOP CIA Bureau Chief in Ottawa? And, he is engineering a Canadian economic collapse so we’ll cry “Uncle” and become the 51st state?
I wouldn’t trust that guy as far as I could throw him.
$0.40 loonie!!?
I HOPE! I bought mostly American back in October. Every cent the lookie drops is over 1G in my pocket
Something to be said about that balanced portfolio Garth has been chieping about. Hes also right about picking stocks. My play account which is less than 20% of my investments is the only one to not make me money thanks to stock picking.
This is where your tax dollars will go if we elect harper.
Enough reason to kick his but.
The guy is taking himself seriously, even demonstrating sarcastic narcissism.
It is all about him being in power.
Idiot.
Unfortunately the masses don’t see through Harper’s smokescreen of getting tough on terror. He wants to hide his ineptitude in managing our economy. Growth has slowed, unemployment is rising, Canada’s manufacturing sector actually shrank last year. Harper has gone to extraordinary lengths, he’s muzzled scientists, lied about environmental impacts, ignored public input, diminished parliament, neutered Conservative MPs, launched taxpayer funded misinformation campaigns, cut social spending, reduced corporate taxes.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) ranked Canada 15th out of 144 countries in its Global Competitiveness Report for 2014-15. Note that this score was the lowest since this sociopath took power.
“The Harper government’s plan to replace aging CF-18 fighter jets with Lockheed Martin’s F-35 jets has turned into a saga of unproven technology, questionable delays, disturbing malfunctions, and huge cost overruns. While the government claimed the F-35 fleet purchase — opposed by many Canadians as inappropriate and criticized by both the auditor general and the parliamentary budget officer as ill-planned — would cost $16 to $18 billion, the price estimate eventually ballooned to as high as $45 billion.”
So daddy was right. Loonie going down the drain thanks to the idiotic policies.
0.4 range it is. Cheers savers and keep saving these pesos, you surely will need them when you retire
bhahahahahhahahaha
Harpo’s excessive focus on the Oil Sands, at the expense of other areas of the economy has left us in a mess. Sure, the price of Oil isn’t the Cons fault, but Harper is responsible for Canada’s economy being so dependent on oil and gas. Instead of investing in R&D and manufacturing, Harper has focused on expanding markets for raw materials and now we’re screwed.
Over half of the economy is real estate or derivatives – real estate, construction, half of financials, half of wholesale trade, 1/3 of manufacturing, huge part of services.
And money from that drive the rest.
There is nothing left besides the 10 % mining and energy extraction folks.
Our economy can easily shrink to 40 % of its current ‘size’ subsidized by the biggest credit and housing bubble we have ever seen,
Let’s make our country more productive by investing in R&D, innovation, manufacturing, small business, education–not! let’s buy the election by a home renno tax credit, something that will make this economy strong, something that will equip our youth with the skills they need to compete, something that will help our manufacturing companies be more competative–I mean something that will give money to people who don’t need it. Way to go Harpo, you despicable $^$$(
#75 Tim
R & D?
The guy needs cheap slave labour, people to compete with Mexico in manufacturing.
#34 Steve French on 08.04.2020 at 7:25 pm
-Edited for accuracy-
Some of the richest and best looking people I know are bankruptcy/divorce lawyers and repo men/women.
They’re hot, have huge mansions with granite and all the toys.
Maybe the rest of you basement dwellers should look into becoming bankruptcy/divorce lawyers and repo men/women.
In the past, around 2015, when Garth was writing here, one became a realtor/realtress to move into the upper class.
Now being a bankruptcy/divorce lawyer and repo man/woman is where the action is. And just 4 months of coursework required to be a repo man/woman!
Different time different economy.
Get up to speed, or be left behind.
MF
If you look at the chart you have to wonder .
1) real estate, rent , etc
You have to wonder what percentage of the top 7 items indirectly affect real estate
Manufacturing …
Mining, raw material forestry for housing
financial, loan mortages, issurance related to housing
Construction, building houses apartment
Administration, permits, or new contruction.
Slow down housing and your top 7 will also slow down even more than it already has
I was at the Country Inn & Suites in Panama City, Panama a year or two before the Americans handed the canal back to PANAMA. Over breakfast it was remarked that Chretien would be in power for life. The Liberals would rule Canada forever. Now we have the Harper fixture seemingly an unending term.
Hopefully the swarm of MBA’s this September will take up the propensity of life terms for Prime-Ministers in office in Canada for their thesis.
This election shows a diverse assortment of hair growth. We voted for Harper as a stable mature and knowledgeable sort which turned out to be the wrong measurement. Post Harper one is lead to believe a neophyte would show more respect for the voters.
Command and Control Economy Anyone?
Tim on 08.04.15 at 9:07 pm said:
Harpo’s excessive focus on the Oil Sands, at the expense of other areas of the economy has left us in a mess.
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I was not aware that the federal government had invested in the oil sands. I thought that was various private companies. Shell, Imperial Oil, Suncor, CNRl and others.
I was also not aware that it was the job of government as opposed to private companies to choose which industries to support and encourage and invest in. This will be news to Adam Smith.
Canadian companies have invested in oil because it is there in Canada and has been profitable to invest in.
I wonder exactly which areas of the economy have been starved for investment. That is, profit-making investment opportunities gone begging for lack of capital investment. What are those areas, pray tell?
Why does an investment in oil sands preclude or reduceinvestments in other sectors in Canada when there is a global capital market thirsting for profitable investment opportunities?
#52 Smoking writer on 08.04.15 at 8:08 pm
Hey Smoking Man… do you like Kurt Vonnegut’s stories?
…..
Never heard of him, of to the university of Google I go..
#72 Sheane Wallace on 08.04.15 at 9:00 pm
Yeah but what other options are there?
MF
At #65: BS, you said, “The “law” you are referring to is Chinese law. Chinese laws are not applicable in Canada. You can bring as much money as you like here (or to the US). The “50,000 RMB out of the country” law you cite is as relevant as a Saudi burqa law in Canada. We do not enforce other countries laws here. Nothing illegal about bringing money into Canada as far as Canadian law is concerned.”
BS, speak for your own country. In the U.S., you are only allowed to bring $10,000 cash across borders, regardless of the other nations’ laws. If the owner of the funds choose to receive his/her monies in his/her account, he/she must first have a U.S. domiciled account, having passed stringent OFAC compliance standards, as well as KYC (Know Your Customer) standards. Additionally, large sums funded into anyone’s account via electronic transfer or a manual deposit, withdraw, or exchange in excess of $10,000 REQUIRES the transaction to be reported to via CTR (currency transaction report) to FinCen. It’s typically done automatically and electronically at the bank’s level.
If suspicious activity is indeed perceived, an SAR (suspicious activity report) is require to be filed. SARs can be filed, regardless of transaction amount, if such suspicious activity is perceived. Customers are not directly told about the $10,000 threshold unless they ask about it. Money laundering in the U.S. since 1986 is extremely difficult, since the Money Laundering Control Act was passed. In fact, it’s significantly easier to counterfeit as opposed to launder. The Government knows a lot more than people give credit, especially when it comes to foreign nationals, foreign transactions, and global movement of all funds. The U.S. Government pays extreme attention and caution to the thee stages of money laundering, including Placement, Layering, and Integration. Good luck with that if you have the balls to try.
THE GLOBE’S ELECTION FORECAST: Conservatives have a 61 per cent chance of winning, but a majority may be out of reach.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/globe-election-forecast-2015/article25377958/
NPD Should Thank Stephen Harper for this Gift:
#62 the Jaguar on 08.04.15 at 8:38 pm said:
A ‘Watershed’ moment today. Stephen Harper called the election of the NDP in Alberta a “disaster”. Threw Rachel Notley under the bus in an attempt to secure Alberta votes. A singular error. Ungentlemanly. A moment Albertans will not forget. How dare he question our recent electoral decision in such an arrogant way.
****************************************
My sentiments exactly, you don’t get people to vote for you by telling them they were stupid to vote as they did in the recent provincial election.
This is almost as good as when a group of business leaders foolishly came out in Edmonton a week before the election to warn people not to vote NDP. Back fired big time.
One of those was the chair of the University of Alberta Board. He had to quit over the matter. The others were privately wealthy and had a right to spread their opinion. But, yes it totally backfired. I did not hear if the NDP sent a thank you note.
You just don’t insult people that way and get away with it.
At #65: BS, some interesting reads about a singular event this past March. Would you like to know what tipped off the U.S. Government? CTRs. It makes sense, and it works.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-indicts-ex-chinese-government-official-on-money-laundering-charges-1426688270
http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/us/2015-03/20/content_19870571.htm
Haven’t read many posts – just saw “could rates go -ve in canada”.
They are negative! Prices are going up more than you get back in interest. It’s called “real terms”.
No wonder you boys are in trouble…
#24 Little Dipper on 08.04.15 at 7:03 pm
“If Garth hasn’t already given us enough reasons to vote out Harper’s Conservatives, this might: since Harper took office in 2006, the national debt has soared by 27% ($131 billion). ”
_-________________________________
It’s common knowledge the CONServative party has always been about the 1% . CONs will spend every penny and then some to give inflated contracts to their corporate buddies. Once out of office CONs become “consultants” or they sit on the boards of multi national companies which they helped to plunder canadian taxpayers or Canadian lands, resources etc. Conservatives have always and will always run deficits. CONs laugh and call you the canadian votes sheep( ask garth). I am NDP and I am voting Liberals. Mulcair is a conservative wolf in NDP clothing.
#84 MF
not many.
In the country of the blind/idiots/ the one eyed/the plain non-idiot stupid/ is the king.
Garth you may recall some time ago I said look to the UK for examples of how far the govt will go. In fact in the UK they had policies to make “home improvement” cheaper.
They also started underwriting loans directly just like CMHC and even having the govt stump up part of the loan to give to developers which the borrower then pays back to the state. Also shared mortgages across two families (“joint ownership”).
Yes you have all this and more to come. Then QE.
Excited?
With regard to the ‘permanent’ home renovation tax credit, don’t Canadians realize there is nothing permanent about home renovations?
Granite and Stainless are really just the ‘burnt-orange’ and ‘avocado-green’ appliances and bathroom fixtures of tomorrow.
Every time I visit my parent’s home it’s 1974 all over again.
While we debate who is the best dog to lead this light weight country, there is some serious shit brewing in the middle east.
Putin basically said to Turkey, stop supporting ISIS. Created by John McCain to fight against Syria..
In no uncertain terms, I don’t give two flying fks your in NATO, Russia, Iran and China are backing Assad. He will not go down.
And you are now on our now on our shit list.. Mr Turkey…
Something tells me, not to far off, owning energy will be a good bet..
It’s on sale now….
Isn’t Harper the homeliest looking excuse for a human. Ever. I can’t imagine anybody honestly thinking of supporting his idiocy. Sucked the sheeple into a majority the last election……..I like to have faith in my fellow Canadians but if this ahole sees another term, I will know we are truly screwed. Good lord.
A couple of questions:
How old was Harper when he became PM?
Do indebted homeowners have anymore money for reno’s?
Is it the same as 2009/11 or is it much much worse?
How long have the Alberta NDP been in power and are they responsible for the mess?
Is oil ever coming back, what about advances in renewable?
Does Harper have any credibility left? (just about everyone in some form or another has been touched negatively by the conservatives.
What happened to all Harper’s star candidates. Spending more time with family…finally?
How has Canada performed in the last 4 years? Our we an economic super power selling to the rest of the world?
Geezus.
Sorry spelling for those who are look at the grammar rather than the substance.
Correction.
How has Canada performed in the last 4 years? Our we an economic super power selling to the rest of the world?
Our we should have been (Are we)
This is almost as good as when a group of business leaders foolishly came out in Edmonton a week before the election to warn people not to vote NDP. Back fired big time.
And Alberta is going into the crapper.
Jokes on who?
People don’t vote parties in. They vote parties out. And I know how the next vote is gonna go as Alberta circles the toilet under NDP rule for the next few years.
Do indebted homeowners have anymore money for reno’s?
You think indebted homeowners use their own money for renos?
You think it’s difficult to get a bank to lend money?
That’s cute.
The American – Love your posts. Thanks for giving needed perspective to old thinking. You are the most informative and unapologetic poster here. I lived in the States for four years back in 2011 and it was eye opening. It challenges everything I had been taught about those “stupid Yanks.” What little we really know or understand about our Southern neighbours. Americans are very knowledgable and way more progressive than we are taught to believe. Their unabashed and unapologetic behaviours are refreshing in the face of Canadian political correctness and often false premises. I miss my friends in California and Texas dearly. They are some of the warmest and wisest people I’ve encountered in my 48 years. Thank you and keep on posting!
No. 77,
Ain’t gonna happen Tim. People are making $100000 renovating a house in three months. Ask high school boys what they want to do. They want to ride the real estate wave. Who wants to spend eight years and 500000$ in tuition and missed income opportunity cost when you can pick up a hammer and get rich. Innovation dies in such an environment.
#53 Brian Ripley
Your charts are the best! Kudos
DELETED
Hey Smoking Man you should read Henry Miller’s “Tropic of Cancer”.
It’d be right up your alley.
——
“I have found God, but he is insufficient.”
― Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer
———-
“Paris is like a whore. From a distance she seems ravishing, you can’t wait until you have her in your arms. And five minutes later you feel empty, disgusted with yourself. You feel tricked.”
― Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer
Found this and thought I would share it.
Harper has the worst economic record of any P.M. since 1935. Here are national average annual GDP growth rates, over the terms of Prime Ministers, since 1935:
William Lyon MacKenzie King, 1935-1948: 6.24 %
Louis St. Laurent, 1948-1957: 5.20 %
John Diefenbaker, 1957-1963: 3.78 %
Lester Pearson, 1963-1968: 5.43 %
Pierre Trudeau, 1968-1979: 4.28 %
Pierre Trudeau, 1980-1984: 2.16 %
Brian Mulroney, 1984-1993: 2.51 %
Jean Chretien, 1993-2003: 3.32 %
Paul Martin, 2003-2006: 2.71 %
Stephen Harper, 2006-present: 1.58 % and falling fast
#85 The American on 08.04.15 at 9:23 pm
Did you murder hitchbot?
#60 Brian on 08.04.15 at 8:27 pm
__________________________
Crikey, how did a ‘roo-shagging REALTURD® get in here?
#85 The American on 08.04.15 at 9:23 pm
_________________________
Excellent post, thanks for clearing that up with facts.
Smoking Man, you know, sometimes you really rock when you’re sober.
Always good to hear from someone occasionally thinking outside the box.
Gee’s I was just going to send off my $500 donation to Mr. Harper but after reading all this bashing.
I just send $1000 instead, I just can not envision Justin or heaven forbid the N.D.P
Remember a few years ago I told you that soon that $600,000 average house will be worth $1.2 Million? Well with houses in Toronto averaging $1.1 Million, I’m not far off the mark am I ??
And I keep talking about Canada having negative interest rates; I sure hope to God I’m wrong about that because if that happens our entire economy will be turned inside out just before it explodes.
A lady friend called me tonight to run a quote by me for some new windows.
After explaining how the Reno tax credit was in the wings she immediately decided to wait it out rather than sign for the $7000 worth of work.
It seems that Harper has imposed an anti stimulus measure with today’s announcement.
“I wonder exactly which areas of the economy have been starved for investment. That is, profit-making investment opportunities gone begging for lack of capital investment. What are those areas, pray tell?”
Telecom has been significantly under-invested, with Canada lagging behind significantly in the installation of fiber optic networking to the home. The railways have been under-invested to the extent that a single derailment could disrupt, for weeks, passenger rail and freight traffic. With infrastructure in significant long-term decay. The manufacturing sector is a mess, on account of the very high cost of capital. The gold mining sector at this point basically has zero access to capital, and the rest of the mining complex isn’t much better.
Even Ontario could use a dozen replacement nuclear power plants at this point with their energy demands and the necessity of retiring the Pickering/Bruce/Darlington complexes. But private sector equity capital for long term investment in the sector is basically unavailable.
Technology R&D has little to no access to capital in Canada (ie: extremely high cost of capital). Other R&D sectors have been significantly impacted by the lack of / high cost of speculative capital in the Canadian economy.
Basically outside of FIRE, and industry focussed on the consumer consumption associated with RE, capital has been very expensive. The high cost of capital has significantly truncated economic opportunities, particular for Canada’s engineering community which finds itself with a unemployment/underemployment rate in excess of 66% according to the OSPE’s research.
DELETED (tasteless)
Hey Smoking Man you should read Henry Miller’s “Tropic of Cancer”.
It’d be right up your alley.
———–
Start with some Theodor Geisel maybe…
There is no shortage of money you fools ……
At #106: Same Spade, I did not murder hitchBOT. Unfortunately his beheading by a drunk Philadelphia punk is most unfortunate. I have to admit, though, if I saw an overly cheerful robot hitchhiking on the side of a road at night in a sketchy Philadelphia neighborhood that I might have to think twice about its intentions… I wonder if his outcome would have been different if he would have been packing heat with that one movable arm? Fortunately, his family is making provisions to continue his journey across the U.S. so he can complete his bucket list. I’ve been proactive and already sent the invitation for him to spend time with me in Seattle for the “Sleepless in Seattle” leg of his tour. If I have my way, that son of a bitch is going to take the Ride the Ducks tour with me, as well as the Underground Tour and the Seattle Seaplane tour.
http://www.ridetheducksofseattle.com
http://www.undergroundtour.com
http://www.kenmoreair.com/flights/scenic-flight-tours/?gclid=CjwKEAjwxYGuBRCtoqjkrIPDqDwSJAAnd-rCQc0_B1dwgupZ1xH0jTokK2uhiBjx7peSG63cJDG94hoCETfw_wcB
Garth,
Lots of complaints about the length of Canuck election campaign…be thankful it ain’t the US……close to a year and a half of hot air and nonsense….already fed up with hearing about Trump, Clinton, Bush etc….otoh, if a minority government comes in and gets quickly defeated a la Joe Clark, maybe Canada could even have 2 elections before the yanks get in one!
#27 Kirk on 08.04.15 at 7:09 pm
Garth, do you believe there is any hope for some rational politics to rescue the economy in the next election or were all the options exhausted already?
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Doesn’t matter who’s at the wheel for the short term. Oil is probably going to stay down for a while. Can’t see anything popping up soon that could save the Loonie. All commodities in the tank until the economy comes around. The only real hand to be played, is to juice what still has some gas left in the tank. When that (RE) finally goes, so will consumer confidence, consumer spending (borrowing), and we will be in a giant pickle. With RE, spending, commodities, and basically everything else down the tubes, all eyes will be on manufacturing as the Loonie hits new lows. Too bad every one has been so distracted to notice Ontario getting stripped of the industrial soul it once had. Draconian measures straight from the 9th plane of hades will be required to even have a chance at getting some of it back. Your guess is as good as mine as to where we go from there.
The Devastation in Global Commodity Currencies Is Far From Over
Canada, Australia, New Zealand currencies set to plunge, OppenheimerFunds says.
The Oil Crash Has Caused a $1.3 Trillion Wipeout
energy shares pension plans
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-04/the-oil-crash-has-caused-a-1-3-trillion-wipeout
#111 The American on 08.04.15 at 11:01 pm
At #106: Same Spade, I did not murder hitchBOT. Unfortunately his beheading by a drunk Philadelphia punk is most unfortunate. I have to admit, though, if I saw an overly cheerful robot hitchhiking on the side of a road at night in a sketchy Philadelphia neighborhood that I might have to think twice about its intentions… I wonder if his outcome would have been different if he would have been packing heat with that one movable arm? Fortunately, his family is making provisions to continue his journey across the U.S. so he can complete his bucket list. I’ve been proactive and already sent the invitation for him to spend time with me in Seattle for the “Sleepless in Seattle” leg of his tour. If I have my way, that son of a bitch is going to take the Ride the Ducks tour with me, as well as the Underground Tour and the Seattle Seaplane tour.
http://www.ridetheducksofseattle.com
http://www.undergroundtour.com
http://www.kenmoreair.com/flights/scenic-flight-tours/?gclid=CjwKEAjwxYGuBRCtoqjkrIPDqDwSJAAnd-rCQc0_B1dwgupZ1xH0jTokK2uhiBjx7peSG63cJDG94hoCETfw_wcB
————————————–
Ok, the hunt continues.
HitchBOT should have been packing heat!
Just visited Seattle last week. Lovely place. Missed the duck tour. Did the Boeing one. Awesome.
Unfortunately, without having a clue where I was I ended up sitting on Rob Reiner’s stool. That is one busy market. Does everyone line up for selfies at the original Starbucks…sheesh.
#5 Smartalox on 08.04.15 at 5:59 pm
When an airplane crashes, and the cause is found to be related to the design of the aircraft, all the other planes of that make and model are inspected, to see if they too, contain the same problem. After 2009, is it too much to ask that we treat the financial system with at least the same degree of care as they use in aviation?”
This economy is a train wreck, not a plane crash, please get yer transport disaster analogies right!
Wrong. You can bring as much money you want into the US as long as you declare it. It does not matter if it is cash or wire transfer. Same as Canada. The 10,000 rule just means you have to check the box on the entry form that you have more than $10,000 in cash. It does not make it illegal. Are you trying to say any non American who purchases property in the US is doing it illegally?
Mark at 110
provides a bunch of words and not a single statistic or piece of data to back it up and includes the following:
Telecom has been significantly under-invested, with Canada lagging behind significantly in the installation of fiber optic networking to the home. The railways have been under-invested to the extent that a single derailment could disrupt, for weeks, passenger rail and freight traffic. With infrastructure in significant long-term decay. The manufacturing sector is a mess, on account of the very high cost of capital. The gold mining sector at this point basically has zero access to capital, and the rest of the mining complex isn’t much better.
***************************************
Really, Telus, Bell, Rogers. Wind Mobility and others have under-invested? I think they have invested every dollar that they wanted to.
Really now, CN and CP have under invested. You might want to check how their assets have grown over the last 20 years – massive capital spending actually. Do you remember when they tried to issue shares and debt and could not? Neither to I.
Manufacturing – high cost of capital. Really, with interest rates at about record lows in all of recorded history?
No one wants to give money to Gold miners because they have a great history of destroying capital. Check Barrick, the sum total of its earnings from its creation until today is well below zero.
Mark, be assured the high cost of capital is not the reason for unemployed engineers. The cost of capital is at record lows. But projects destined to lose money cannot raise capital easily of course.
Is the supposed high cost of capital the reason for RIMs failure? No Nortel, no.
Okay that’s my quota for time wasted on a response to Mark.
LeoTrollstoy and comments about the NPD
Yeah, newsflash, the NDP did not cause world oil prices to go down.
Also all the government workers (teachers, heath care and other government) who voted NDP still have their jobs. A lot of the economy is still humming in Alberta. Including construction. For how long, we shall see.
#100 Jason Powell on 08.04.15 at 10:06 pm
The American – Love your posts. Thanks for giving needed perspective to old thinking. You are the most informative and unapologetic poster here. I lived in the States for four years back in 2011 and it was eye opening. It challenges everything I had been taught about those “stupid Yanks.” What little we really know or understand about our Southern neighbours. Americans are very knowledgable and way more progressive than we are taught to believe. Their unabashed and unapologetic behaviours are refreshing in the face of Canadian political correctness and often false premises. I miss my friends in California and Texas dearly. They are some of the warmest and wisest people I’ve encountered in my 48 years. Thank you and keep on posting!”
3 words….Get a room!
I can put why you should vote for Harper in only four letters TFSA.
If you are a saver who cares about having a comfortable retirement Harper is your man.
“Really, Telus, Bell, Rogers. Wind Mobility and others have under-invested? I think they have invested every dollar that they wanted to.”
Yes, they have underinvested. Remember, the investment making decision process is to allocate capital towards the highest returning investment. Equity has been so expensive for those companies that the most efficient thing to do, mostly, has been to invest in their own shares by way of buybacks and dividends.
Same with railways. The market capitalization of the railways is dramatically less than the replacement cost of their assets. So it makes no sense to invest any more than is strictly necessary into physical plant, in favour of repaying the high cost equity on the balance sheet.
Do you remember when they tried to issue shares and debt and could not? Neither to I.
They’re paying a lot more to issue those shares and that debt than they should be relative to the long-term value of their assets. Hence, most of “corporate Canada” ex-FIRE, ex-O&G has been running in austerity mode since the 2001-2003 downturn in an attempt to preserve value for shareholders. Businesses that, in the 1980s and 1990s, issued high interest rate long-term obligations on the theory that 80s and 90s rates of inflation or currency weakness would continue, have suffered disproportionately.
Manufacturing – high cost of capital. Really, with interest rates at about record lows in all of recorded history?
Interest rates are only one aspect of the capital raising process. Equity is the other aspect. And equity in the manufacturing sector is very expensive. Without equity, firms cannot take on debt to make new investments in manufacturing. Particularly capital intensive manufacturing. And debt isn’t cheap for Canadian firms either — there was a while a few years back when residential mortgages could be obtained for cheaper than firms like CNR, CPR, Bell, Telus, etc., could go out and borrow in the debt markets. Canadian business has been labouring under a high cost of capital environment, and excess housing speculation encouraged by the CMHC’s subprime mortgage guarantees are a significant reason for this.
The CMHC provided guarantees of close to $1T of residential mortgage debt. Effectively turning it into highly desirable sovereign credit. That is credit that is thus unavailable to the rest of the private sector.
85:
http://business.financialpost.com/personal-finance/mortgages-real-estate/canadians-buy-most-u-s-properties-in-the-world-but-china-spends-most
I guess that $92 billion in 12 months alone was brought in $9999 increments. LOL.
“provides a bunch of words and not a single statistic or piece of data to back it up and includes the following:”
Go onto YouTube and listen to various speeches of the CEO of VIA Rail. If it isn’t obvious to you that the railway infrastructure in Canada, in the Toronto-Montreal corridor, is under-invested, than anything more I write probably would be lost on you.
Telecom infrastructure, Canada is a severe laggard compared to many other industrialized countries. There are plenty of sources you can look at for such.
R&D — as cited earlier, Canada has a huge engineering unemployment/underemployment problem, and the loss of domestic R&D capability features prominently into such. R&D requires speculative equity capital to be available in the economy at reasonable prices.
Look, I’m willing to back up everything I write with facts, but if you insist on belligerence, then I don’t see the point in bothering. Just the telecom and railway sectors could use a few hundred billion in investment alone. Nevermind all the other infrastructure neglect in the more traditional public sector.
At #123: BS, re-read my most. It isn’t illegal to have a transaction over $10,000, but if you bring more in than $10,000 a CTR is required. Legality was never a discussion point of mine. Period.
So, as a carpenter, if i work for cash, I’m supposed to pay my mortgage and other bills how? Oh wait, if i work for cash I’ll never get a mortgage /car loan / credit in the first place! I’d throw in a comment about the CPP but we all know I’m paying into it so i can eat catfood later. Maybe re-think that little dis?
I’m going to enjoy watching Canada turn into an economic basket case like Spain. Glad I’m renting and working for a company that services the USA and UK market. Liquid and loving it!!
#124 Shawn on 08.04.15 at 11:19 pm
Mark at 110
provides a bunch of words and not a single statistic or piece of data to back it up and includes the following:
Telecom has been significantly under-invested, with Canada lagging behind significantly in the installation of fiber optic networking to the home. The railways have been under-invested to the extent that a single derailment could disrupt, for weeks, passenger rail and freight traffic. With infrastructure in significant long-term decay. The manufacturing sector is a mess, on account of the very high cost of capital. The gold mining sector at this point basically has zero access to capital, and the rest of the mining complex isn’t much better.
***************************************
Really, Telus, Bell, Rogers. Wind Mobility and others have under-invested? I think they have invested every dollar that they wanted to.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Yer dead wrong on this one son. Canada has some of the worst internet and wireless in the world.
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/jesse-kline-why-canada-has-third-world-access-to-the-internet
If they stopped pissing away billions of dollars on animal ads, they would have more for cell towers and fiber.
#124 Shawn
Mark at 110
provides a bunch of words and not a single statistic or piece of data to back it up
Just treat Mark’s posts like text vomit. It has similar value.
Anybody can be wrong about gold, or the CAD, or Toronto real estate prices/sales mix, or deflation, or mortgage/risk premia, and the rest of it. But it’s rare for one person to be wrong on so many topics.
That’s art.
#52 Smoking writer on 08.04.15 at 8:08 pm
Hey Smoking Man… do you like Kurt Vonnegut’s stories?
…..
Never heard of him, of to the university of Google I go..
****
You’re a writer and you’ve never heard of KV? Sheeesshhh!!
“The cost of capital is at record lows. But projects destined to lose money cannot raise capital easily of course.”
Simply not true. The cost of capital is abnormally high on account of relatively low valuations in the stock market. Canada’s small-cap sector has been decimated to smithereens lately, but even large-caps face a high cost of capital.
For instance, the TSX P/E is around 15 right now, which may seem in-line with historic average of 17. However, that historic average of 17 was with respect to an interest rate environment averaging around 7%.
So if P/E of 17 was the average with interest rates 7%, to have a P/E of 15 today, and a BoC policy rate of 0.5% makes it plainly obvious that equity capital is very expensive in Canada on a relative basis.
On a comparison basis, Canadian housing trades at a P/E of approximately 35 in the current interest rate environment. Traditionally housing in a ‘normal’ environment would only be expected to trade at 8-12X earnings on account of its very low implied growth rate (rents grow approximately at the rate of inflation over the long term, while business tends to experience positive real growth over the long term!).
Hence, the cost of equity capital to the RE sector is very low, as the P/E is high. The cost of capital to the business/private sector is extremely high on account of a below-average P/E in an extremely low interest rate environment. For the stock market to achieve a similar implied cost of equity capital to the housing sector, the TSX would need to roughly triple from current levels relative to housing. That is precisely what happened in the 1990s, hence the extremely vibrant economy that resulted.
Mark thought that the USD was ‘worthless’ in 2010. How much longer will he believe in the ‘worthless’ USD? No idea.
http://forums.redflagdeals.com/boc-buying-usd-964543/
But we can’t be too hard on the guy. According to his writing, he was unable to find a job for 7 years in and around the tech wreck. That would suck. The engineers that I know didn’t have a problem. Many went to work at the banks. Unfortunately some weren’t as lucky.
http://forums.redflagdeals.com/ptsd-engineering-school-675936/
#83 Smoking Man on 08.04.15 at 9:20 pm
#52 Smoking writer on 08.04.15 at 8:08 pm
Hey Smoking Man… do you like Kurt Vonnegut’s stories?
…..
Never heard of him, of to the university of Google I go..
….
Go find him.
Huge books in few pages.
You should finish one in a day or two, even JD will approve.
You can try Cat’s Cradle, or Slaughterhouse-Five if you insists on aliens in a novel.
He is also a university drop-out, what you may like.
Kurt will help you with your dialogue writing pains.
You will discovering how to make it work keeping it simple.
Because as a novelist, chances are you can’t write dialogue like a play-wright, no matter how appealing it might be to able to paint full characters in ten sentences, just talking.
Otherwise you would not waste time with fancy sentences – you wold just write the magic dialogues.
#62 The Jaguar “A ‘Watershed’ moment today. Stephen Harper called the election of the NDP in Alberta a “disaster”. ” We all know what happened when Jim Prentice told Rachel Notley, she does not understand math during the debate. One thing, I wish would change in Canadian Politics is two term limit similar to the states. This would instill new blood and more “whipper snippers” with fresh ideas. I feel Harper is getting old in the tooth with his ideas. The economy will be the most important issue and the party with the best approach will win majority.
Crash, baby, crash.
Keep pouring fuel on the fire, keeping inflating the bubble, so when it bursts it will be all that more spectacular. I can’t wait!
39 retired boomer – get a bike and ride!
#117 – The American
I appreciate your offer to take host our hitchBOT in Seattle. I thought that the adventure was over. Happy to hear that there are some contingency plans in place.
We’re up in Vancouver but come down often for Mariners games. We took in the Underground Tour this weekend. Awesome. Seattle history, the city, and the people who live there are great.
#124 Shawn on 08.04.15 at 11:19 pm
“Mark, be assured the high cost of capital is not the reason for unemployed engineers. The cost of capital is at record lows. But projects destined to lose money cannot raise capital easily of course.
Is the supposed high cost of capital the reason for RIMs failure? No Nortel, no.
Okay that’s my quota for time wasted on a response to Mark.”
I will finish…
Mark – with respect to R&D and new investment in high tech, I do some Angel investing in Vancouver/US. Valuations are climbing because there is a lot of frothy money going around. Its not as bad as 99-01 but it is pretty easy to get capital for a solid idea with a great team.
VCs in the US are sending up reps to checkout what is going on and add further monies into the marketplace.
#24 Little Dipper on 08.04.15 at 7:03 pm
If Garth hasn’t already given us enough reasons to vote out Harper’s Conservatives, this might: since Harper took office in 2006, the national debt has soared by 27% ($131 billion).
—————
I always wonder if the left are really that dumb or just being political. Because the fact of the matter is they wanted Harper to spend much more than they did and accuse him of cutting spending from one side of their mouth and then blame him for taking on debt from the other side.
Meanwhile in Ontario where the NDP opps sorry Liberal government have raised taxes many times and are still running a much larger deficit and have increased the debt even more than the feds.
Normally Ontario hedges the insanity by going Lib if the feds are PC and PC if the feds are Lib. To have a NDP fed and NDP opps I mean Lib province would be the final nail in the coffin of Ontario.
For # 65 BS,
Yes, you can bring all of the money you want into Canada, but the law says you must formally declare any sums over the equivalent of $10,000 CAD.
I read the same article in the National Post. It is about Chinese nationals bringing in large sums of money to Canada and not declaring it. Ironically, the same article states that much of these funds end up in the Vancouver real estate market.
I suspect that this may become an election issue.
Mark, your posts are nuts.
I miss how dumping government money into private telecom companies to allow us to have fibre optic internet for faster porn in the home would help the economy.
It’s the same format of socialist babble I’ve seen before. It isn’t the 1840’s of Marx and Engels any longer. Money is fluid, and finds the greatest returns possible. If Canada had higher costs, greater political risk, less prevelance of the rule of law, there would be less investment in Canada than there is now.
There’s many Harper haters on here tonight. I also miss how bearded Tommy or JT would make things right.
Stephen Harper is the victim of the era he finds himself in; of post US economic collapse and the rise of the asset bubbles, in more areas than Canadian housing alone. Most of the richer members of the Commonwealth countries are in exactly the same boat, and none of them are out of it yet.
Instead of Harper hating, or dusting off your Trudeau canoe, perhaps give greater thought in how to make the next Era we enter work for you.
Smoking Man, to his credit, has noted an important point. Russia still is an empire, like in the real pre world war one or star wars movie way.
They will not sit idly by and return land they siezed in Ukraine, or allow their grip on Syria to be lost. I expect something further this year from them. They will not sit idly by and take sanctions for years like Iran. They’ll do anything drastic they please, and then obviscate and lie about doing it afterward.
Find a way to profit from this, and you’ll do well in coming years.
The dippers will claw back the TFSA. Also they will eliminate income splitting for families with children.
The dippers say this is because these programs only benefit the rich. That is a boldface lie. The TFSA benefits people like myself of modest income who live well below their means and income splitting benefits anyone with children whose spouse is in a lower tax bracket.
Telecom has been significantly under-invested, with Canada lagging behind significantly in the installation of fiber optic networking to the home
Lies. We spend plenty per capita. Not our fault we’ve got a big ass country with lots of ground to cover.
Remember a few years ago I told you that soon that $600,000 average house will be worth $1.2 Million?
Yeah, everyone remembers that.
Every night on the National, I see Stephen Harper crowing about his economic record, and downplaying fears that Canada’s in a recession.
And I can’t help but wonder how many of the blue-collar, fluorescent vest wearing, employees standing behind him will lose their jobs before October 19th.
#25 the core
Glib but funny.
The sad fact of it all, per the Globe & Mail and featured on BNN today, is that the reno industry is already going flat out and the “stimulus” will do nothing other than lower tax revenue.
Again, another “buy votes” tactic that shows Harper has no new ideas on how to create jobs.
We are in trouble indeed.
#65 BS
That is simply not true. Anything over $10,000 cash has to be declared and if you travel internationally and actually read the form you would know that.
Electronically I believe you can still wire larger amounts. But it’s still hard even within Canada. And this was a while ago I tried to wire an amount higher than $10,000 from TD where I had the money to Scotia, and they made me fill out all kinds of forms. Scotia was not happy to be getting this money. Not at all. Why a bank wouldn’t want legit money is beyond me but they didn’t want it.
Try moving +$10,000 anywhere these days and see what happens. If you try and take out that kind of money cash to buy a classic car they won’t let you do it, you have to get a draft.
Cash will soon be dead. They already won’t let you take it out or put it back in, $10,000 being the cut off. But soon the cut off will be $60 as in Greece.
Anyway it’s made out of Saran Wrap so who cares. You can’t even use it to start a fire anymore.
So for those who are interested in the story further the reason I was moving the money was the whole CDIC limit thing and banks were failing in the US. Garth turned out right again and no banks failed here, but it’s a little bit of spending money neither my financial guy or my wife knows about. You should have such an account.
#75 Tim
Blackberry was our last great hope on the technology side, and Apple ate them for lunch. What further lackluster investments do you think we should waste our money on?
If you want to be part of the tech revolution, you need to move away from here. Not Seattle of course Microsoft is dying and not California if you are in the trades as 30% of the population is now illegal immigrants, but if you can program a computer good that is where you go not Canada.
#77 Tim
Ok, invent something.
See, it’s not that easy. Go away.
BS, speak for your own country. In the U.S., you are only allowed to bring $10,000 cash across borders, regardless of the other nations’ laws.
====================================
Not quite.
You are allowed bring any amount of cash you want, but above $10,000 it must be declared and of course, they will require an explanation for its source. Otherwise it’s subject to forfeiture. But there is no arbitrary limit on the amount per se.
We have US Customs agents waiting on the jetways of our flights in JFK, BOS, IAD, etc all the time waiting for our passengers, and discoveries of large amounts of cash in concealed money belts and the like is pretty common. Many Asian cultures have a inherent distrust of banks (can’t imagine why?) and would rather carry their life savings on their person rather than move it via wire transfer. The US is a tad, um, unaware, of how anything works outside of its own borders, unfortunately.
Then of course, there is the seizure of cash domestically by corrupt local US law enforcement, aka civil forfeiture which is a huge problem and a different topic…I digress…
Dang I see now that BS has already refuted The American re: cash and US Customs. Whoops.
I love the US, and The American is entertaining, but he’s hardly doing anything to dispel the stereotype of know-it-all ‘Murricans lol.
#87 Shawn
Noltey did not win the popular vote. She won a lottery because Wild Rose split the Tory vote. She has 4 years and the NDP will never be elected in Alberta again. There is so much anger here, the only problem is getting a winning party that is not NDP back on the slate.
Take out as much money from the bank as possible! There’s going to be a debt forgiveness program. And don’t even bother saving. Any spare money, diverisfy your investments and stay liquid because at the first sign of trouble, take out all your cash and go on a 6month vacation until the dust settles down.
The UK Government has been playing the same game with stimulating property demand and effectively paying bungs to housebuilders and civil engineering companies and when rates go up here there’ll be carnage (or Carney-age, depending on your view of your, ah, gift to us). Overborrowed householders bleating that no one ever told them this could happen, how it’s unfair, how “the Guvvermunt” must help them out……. and those of us who resisted the siren call of the bigger house and the Land Rover Discovery on the driveway (or bijou cottage in La Belle France) financed by long term debt secured on “ever-rising house prices” (yeah, right) will end up paying. One way or another, we’ll pay.
We’re screwed but you may be screwed even worse, I regret to say. Bonne chance, mes amis. We’ll all need it.
Debt is slavery. A fool and his money is soon parted. Most often by debt. Recently, fools abounded in the U.S., Japan, and Europe. Millions of families financially ruined, their family jewels crushed.
I said it before, and I will say it again, Canadians have been sleeping, and they are going to pay for their ignorance and their arrogance. Consequences will be unforgiving, harsh, and life altering. Sadly, didn’t have to be this way. The world is watching what we did to ourselves in shock and awe. Canadians, the greatest fools. I would like to say I feel bad buying the following bargains, as I used to. But not any more.
Loonie Watcher @1
It seems suspicious that the extrapolated section of your XBRQ (whatever that is) graph of CAD/USD is almost a straight line down with the same gradient as the previous month of actual data. This contrasts with the other part of the graph that overlaps actual data and that has a very variable gradient, just like the actual data.
Does this model get revised as more actual becomes available perhaps?
Deaf ears, really dumb governance and purposeful blindness to consequences.
Tinkerers. Diddlers. Enormous egos with little to no talent.
Waste on a catastrophic scale. It goes on and on…….
What happens when a people loses respect for its leaders?
Dear Retired Boomer #39
I share your angst about future returns. I do have one thing going for me. Since most of my portfolio is in U.S. Dollars (as per Garth’s advice) it looks better and better when measured in shrinking Canadian dollars. It’s all a matter of perspective; so cheer up.
What many readers of this blog might be missing is that the housing sector of the Canadian economy is being financed by long term debt incurred by Canadian citizens and by a belief that housing represents a form of investment.
A sure sign that our Federal government is intellectually bankrupt is their decision to place the burden of stimulating economy growth squarely on the back of Canadian citizens.
By lowering interest rates, encouraging high ratio mortgages, eliminating any risk for financial institutions and turning a blind eye to the growth of sub-prime lending the Federal government has exposed millions of Canadian citizens to an economic crisis.
We have reached a point where increased immigration, low interest rates, low down payments, historically high levels of debt, a reduction in average household density and various incentive programs have squeezed most of the juice out of the housing lemon. The incomes of new household formations, including new immigrants, are not sufficient to support a continuation of current market values. This is not a prediction it is a hard fact.
The potential impact on Canadian homeowners will only get worse if the Canadian economy continues to contract.
It is time for all political parties to stop fiddling and to deal with the forest fire coming over the hill.
Asking Canadian citizens to buy another fire extinguisher is not the solution!!
Whole Foods has opened another location, at Yonge and Sheppard in Toronto. Which recession?
All those condo dwellers there.
Most voters own houses. Homeowners want higher values. There’s an election coming up, and the government is obliging them. (Liberal or Conservative makes no difference) It isn’t rocket science.
This will all stop when it stops, and not before. In other words, if this can’t continue, then it won’t.
The fellas like me on this blog may be missing one key thing about Harper’s stumble out of the gate.
My wife and her female friends have been buzzing about Harper’s apparent hate-on for women, picking on two of three female premiers, one who has barely been in office long enough to dust off the desk left by Harper’s apPrentice, calling her a “disaster”.
This has left an indelible impression already on women voters, so says my better half.
Bad move Stephen. Another in a series.
I smell a big fail coming on for the reformers.
ENTITLEMENT That is what it is. We all feel entitled to perfect roads, clean drinking water and a fabulous sewage system. This is real government business. Oh yes and passports and immigration (borders should be closed in a hurry) The government should get out of our daily lives and sponsoring childcare and such, just get our of our lives and let us figure things out for ourselves. we may even become productive again. Yes and let’s get rid of the Unions. They are the real problem. Every time the union workers get a pay hike or more perks and pensions that cost is passed on down to us schleps and the cost of everything just keeps going up.
So “no” to an increase in minimum wage. Humans have to learn to figure this out. An increase in minimum wage is not always the answer. It is the unions answer to everything because they get a bigger piece of the pie in dues with every increase.
So let us all live within our means That should be the Government slogan LIVE WITHIN YOUR MEANS. The seniors have to do it and we have figured it our. It translates into shopping at Value Village for only necessities.
no more red meat ….just cook with lentils and beans with lots of vegetables and spices, like the poor of every country do, lots of spices.
Pass magazines on to anybody.
Cut Cable TV Off and join the Library
There are so many things one can do to LIVE WITHIN OUR MEANS
PHARMACARE I got my Doctor (she was unwilling at first) to write me a one years supply for two different prescriptions.. With dispensing fees at $10.00 a fill that would be $20.00 in dispensing fees every three months. Over the course of one year that would total $80.00
I asked the Pharmacist to calculate how much ole Pharmacare would kick in if I bent over and did things the gov’t way. Pharmacare would have kicked in $17.30 FOR every 3 month refill. So FOR 4 refills
in a year Pharmacare would have kicked in $69.20 I am ahead $10.80 in just bypassing Pharmacare. I have $80.00 in MY pocket as a sure thing.
I have also saved the medical system 3 additional visits to a Doctor to beg for a prescription refill. And saved my time.
It just seems to me that our Gov’t is subsidising the Pharmacies and the Doctors. SUCH WASTE. SUCH WASTE
WASTE. Why don’t we all just start EXPOSING GOVERNMENTAL WASTE. Like gov’t ALUMNI PARTIES
And as we slither inexorably towards election day, and the NDP stay ahead in the polls, and the “loonie” contimues its ride to record lows……
The media will blame the voters……
In order to accurately determine if a nation of people can borrow and spend their way into prosperity look west to China, or south to Brasil.
Both countries are a mess……………and it’s going to get much, much, worse. The Canadian economy is a grain of sand on a beach compared to those two countries.
#33 towing the party line on 08.04.15 at 7:23 pm
“Where did you see Garth even suggesting to vote for any other party?”
I didn’t say that: there is a difference between providing reasons to vote against Harper and suggesting we vote for another party. Garth is clearly a Conservative–although of a different breed entirely than Harper–; that hasn’t stopped him from criticizing bad economic policy decisions.
#61 BS on 08.04.15 at 8:29 pm
“What would a left leaning government do in similar times? Look south of the border. Obama is increasing the US debt at 3 times that rate”
Left-leaning? Obama? I suppose if you were to stand far enough to the right, then he would indeed appear to be on your left.
Nonplused……
Don’t know why you have issues wiring money……I don’t even go to the bank to do it.
And, we’re not talking about <10K here either, but much larger amounts. I just call TNLATB in the forex department and it's done.
“Canada June trade deficit plunges on soaring exports”
http://ca.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idCAKCN0QA1H820150805
I love the US, and The American is entertaining, but he’s hardly doing anything to dispel the stereotype of know-it-all ‘Murricans lol
——————————————————————-
I looked up what The Anerican said. Take it for what it is worth but the American’s breakdown is accurate. It appears BS is acting like the know it all and speaking for someone else’s country. Your little tantrum about “corrupt local US law enforcement” and claims of the US being unaware of anything outside its borders is purely rubbish. What remarkably ignorant and know it all comments of your own, BillyBob. I would lean the other direction and say they know more than any other government, especially our own.
#193 Smoking Man on 08.04.15 at 4:58 pm
Out for a Cruz while back.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJyKCR-SkEg
Holy Crap Tylenol.
Shoot me your Lat, Long, I’ll have one of my boys buzz you tonight.
Look up at around 10pm
_____________________________________________
41.7667° N, 82.6409° W
CMHC Let us all cry out for an AUDIT of CMHC before it is too late. Especially the mortgages sealed by “Aggressive” Bankers who lend the penniless virgins the downpayment to get covered by CMHN and then just add the amount of the loan to the mortgage once the deal has closed. Look to CIBC first.
#145 pwn3d on 08.05.15 at 1:29 am
“I always wonder if the left are really that dumb or just being political. Because the fact of the matter is they wanted Harper to spend much more than they did and accuse him of cutting spending from one side of their mouth and then blame him for taking on debt from the other side.”
The left took issue with Harper branding himself as the steady hand on the economy, when in fact he was putting us deeper into debt and fuelling a condo economy. It is not a question of cutting spending vs. taking on debt: rather, on what or whom do you spend? Do you spend on wealth transfers to the rich and the already well-off in the form of tax breaks, or fighter jets, for example, or do you spend on a national daycare program?
#139 Smoking writer on 08.05.15 at 12:14 am
#83 Smoking Man on 08.04.15 at 9:20 pm
#52 Smoking writer on 08.04.15 at 8:08 pm
Hey Smoking Man… do you like Kurt Vonnegut’s stories?
…..
Never heard of him, of to the university of Google I go..
….
Go find him.
Huge books in few pages.
You should finish one in a day or two, even JD will approve.
You can try Cat’s Cradle, or Slaughterhouse-Five if you insists on aliens in a novel.
He is also a university drop-out, what you may like.
Kurt will help you with your dialogue writing pains.
You will discovering how to make it work keeping it simple.
Because as a novelist, chances are you can’t write dialogue like a play-wright, no matter how appealing it might be to able to paint full characters in ten sentences, just talking.
Otherwise you would not waste time with fancy sentences – you wold just write the magic dialogues.
____________________________________________
Told him to read Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse five months ago. Can say if he even know how Billy Pilgrim is of where Tralfamadore is.
Smoking Man just watch the dam movie!
#58 Nonplused
Noltey did not win the popular vote. She won a lottery because Wild Rose split the Tory vote. She has 4 years and the NDP will never be elected in Alberta again. There is so much anger here, the only problem is getting a winning party that is not NDP back on the slate.
……..
True….but, of course, the federal PC’s have also benefitted from our first past the post system. I assume you would then support proportional representation, which the NDP, Liberals and Greens all do but, not surprisingly, Harper does not. Maybe proportional representation in Alberta but not at the federal level….that might work for you!!
No room for nation builders here, tax slayers only need apply.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/the-disappearance-of-the-moderate-conservative/article25836587/
#159 Buy? Curious? on 08.05.15 at 3:42 am
Take out as much money from the bank as possible!
Interesting, I just had a buddy tell me he went to the bank to take out $10000 and the bank started asking him all these questions about what he wanted the money for. Is it their business? It’s his money, dammit!
We should all have a, “take all your money out of the bank day”, and see how resilient our Canadian banking system is before we are forced into it, like Greece. So he ended up taking $5000 over two days. I would have called the manager of the bank and asked to see the policy and at the same time giving him a piece of my mind.
As for transferring money across borders, several posts were correct in that you must declare the money. I have done it many times, most notably when I purchased a home in the US. The banks take care of the paperwork.
“Mulcair also received hearty applause from several hundred convention goers when he said an NDP government would restore door-to-door mail service…”
****************
And how about cheaper beer?
“Mark – with respect to R&D and new investment in high tech, I do some Angel investing in Vancouver/US. Valuations are climbing because there is a lot of frothy money going around. Its not as bad as 99-01 but it is pretty easy to get capital for a solid idea with a great team. “
Mostsly not from Canadian sources though. Which is a giant problem and has been for many years. And the sectors for which such is available is relatively narrow (ie: social media and biotech are the darlings these days — but lots of areas in the R&D complex are otherwise starved and struggling severely).
“Just treat Mark’s posts like text vomit. It has similar value. “
Wow, what a troll. Do you treat your mother to the sort of garbage that comes out of your mouth?
Yer dead wrong on this one son. Canada has some of the worst internet and wireless in the world.
So true, and entirely an artifact of the cost of capital to the telecom sector being very high. It simply doesn’t make much sense for telecoms to invest in infrastructure on any significant basis when they can simply pay dividends and buy back their own stock and achieve a higher return.
Thus in that sector, and many others, the emphasis has been heavily on minimizing capex and minimizing R&D.
#184 Dual Citizen In Canada on 08.05.15 at 10:38 am
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There’s probably some good undercover video footage to be had at banks that treat people that way. I’ve experienced similar treatment, try cashing a cheque for cash for over $1500 and you get treated like you are doing something criminal, even with proper ID and even with a government-issued cheque.
The renovation tax credit only worked if you paid taxes as lots of low income seniors found out the last time.
15% tax credit. Expect the cost of home renovations to go up 20%. Someone has to make money. That would be someone else.
Hi #127 PeterfromCalgary,
I have to agree with you that the TFSA is a good idea. Too bad some think it is for GIC and saving accounts only, or worse aren’t using any of their room in it at all. But maybe most don’t have much if any left over after paying bill and feeding there kids.
If I recall correctly, I believe the TFSA was actually Mr. G’s idea and Mr. F added to his budget. I’m not too sure if Mr. H really had much to do with its inception at all, but he’d like you to think he did now.
But Mr. H would like you to forget about the amount that has been added to the national debt since he was in office. And wasn’t the budget year before he got in, in the black?
And what about the behind closed doors secretive treaty(s) like the TPP. If there were so great for the people you’d think they’d be wanting to show us how good it’ll be for you and me and the rest of the kids in this country??
But what do I know I couldn’t read the whole TPP trade deal even if I wanted to, because there aren’t releasing the whole thing to look at before there implement it, and even after that, which is too late, will we be able to see the ‘whole’ thing???.
And that F35 fighter plane; I hope the info they let out about it is only made up? Not that the planet needs anymore weapons of any kind to kill other human beings with, which one day may include you and me.
At least our Canadian Federal votes are still on paper “counted my human hands”, for now. Electronic vote counting is a really bad bad idea! But I believe Mr. H wanted/wants to change that. But seems the other parties do to. I don’t think any of them have really thought it throw, or maybe they have?
Maybe they don’t think there personal computer can be haked into either?
That robo call thing happened under Mr. H watch.
And there was some election money thing issue too.
And what about this extra-long election he just called that we the tax payer get to cover the bills for, all the election donations do get tax refunds. So either spend less, tax more, or borrow more money to make up the difference.
So much for having our MP’s doing anything in the house in Sept., like asking question. Not that they have any guaranty of an answered. I guess that is why it’s called question period not answer period.
And there were a coup other thing that happened under his watch that seem very strange to me, like the ‘Police Provocateurs stopped by union leader at anti SPP protest’. I do recall I did see Mr. H on the noon news that day, hours before, saying how discussed he was with the way the protesters acted. Was he anticipated that the rock holding police provocateurs would not be found out later in the day, in time, but wanted to make sure the news cameras had the clip in time for the news???
Or maybe he just doesn’t believe in peaceful protects at all? It seems very strange.
And the G20 Toronto protest things. How did a stripped down police car happen to be abandoned were the peaceful protesters were at, only many hours later to catch fire and left to burn for hours!? (I thought Toronto has a world class Fire Department near by?)
It did make for some nice picture on the 6pm news on Sat. Then on Sunday the police went into the park that people were told they could be to protect peacefully. There were a few other strange things that seemed to take place at the G20 in Toronto. But what do I know.
I also recall Mr. H didn’t agree with Mr. G blog at the time, open to all and any issue. And most of us know what Mr. H did about that!
But just to repeat I agree with you that the TFSA is a good thing, if you can take advantage of it. And know enough to not just listen to the nice lady at the bank selling GIC’s.
#169 CHERRY BLOSSOM on 08.05.15 at 9:01 am
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You do realize this is a Canadian-centric blog right? Socialism in Canada is a way of life. The USA has just as much socualism, but that is viewed as a nasty word down there.
In order for the benevolent government to give you this renovation tax credit spending will need to be cut on other useless expenditures like upgrading infrastructure. One possible outcome is you’ll NEED this tax break to pay for flood damage to your home because infrastructure like flood control isn’t being upgraded to deal with more extreme weather events. The other possible outcome is, why bother to renovate your home because you spend so little time there because you’re stuck in traffic or transit gridlock, again due to a lack of infrastructure upgrade spending?
“CMHC Let us all cry out for an AUDIT of CMHC before it is too late. Especially the mortgages sealed by “Aggressive” Bankers who lend the penniless virgins the downpayment to get covered by CMHN and then just add the amount of the loan to the mortgage once the deal has closed. Look to CIBC first.”
The CMHC is already audited. The problem at the CMHC largely revolves around the actuarial assumptions they are allowed to use. Namely, the assumption the CMHC likely operates under is that there will not be a systemic decrease in Canadian house prices, and that the only losses the CMHC will incur will be due to localized factors or one-off events.
In a nutshell, its the same fatal flaw that was present in the United States mortgage finance market. Participants assumed that a few mortgages could go bad, but they assigned an almost zero probability to a correlated house price drop. Which is exactly what happened. Even Ben Bernanke, an apparent “student” of the Great Depression, believed the nonsense.
In contemporary Canada, it is plain obvious what is going on. With housing prices having declined for the past 2 years, we have organizations like the CMHC, TREB, etc., in full-on propaganda mode, trying desperately to convince the practically exhausted pool of buyer that prices are still stable. They even have the audacity to claim appreciation in Toronto/Vancouver when the transactional averages have been disproportionately impacted by a shift to the sales mix.
Personally I think that Harper and company saw that the jig was up, and called the election because its no longer possible to hide the (very) slow-motion, but now accelerating meltdown in Canadian RE. With the accompanying very weak economy such will invariably bring with so much of Canada’s GDP leveraged to housing and consumer consumption.
185 Daisy Mae on 08.05.15 at 10:45 am
“And how about cheaper beer?”
I remember when Hudak became fond of mentioning the return of “a buck a beer” as part of his campaign platform. I told some German friends of mine, and they were surprised as they had been under the impression that we had a free market economy and the government didn’t fix prices… It’s about the same level of tedium to listen to the provincial Dippers and Grits nowadays talk about how much “they” would lower auto insurance premiums.
Let’s see what else the federal opposition can promise. Who cares who pays, someone else. I like the “free” child care plan the best, destined to be paid by the children partaking of it. That’s perfect: universal care for children, by children.
#153
I moved $20k to buy a car the other week. No problem. Lots of people here doing the same.
Also wrote my annual paycheque from my corporation, $50k, no problem.
You do need to fill out a lot of paperwork to link the bank accounts to do easy transfers, but…. you need to do that for $5 or $50,000, same deal.
They say when it comes to writing, writers read.
I disagree with this concept, I read one book from start to finish a while ago when some of you dogs pointed out the similarity with Hunter S Thompson. So I read fear and loathing.
Now I find myself in every so sentence using “of sorts ”
I want to be original, I don’t want to emulate anyone’s style..
Im not reading KV or anyone else. I chose climbing the mountains on the hard side…
…….
Damn it Tylenol, the boys where around yesterday, they’ve left the planet, a meeting of sorts back home.. They will be back in a few weeks…
#140 whitehorn
“One thing, I wish would change in Canadian Politics is two term limit similar to the states.”
—————————-
A fine idea in theory. The problem is this: Although we now have a fixed election date in Canada it’s really not all that ‘fixed’. It only specifies a ‘not later than’ date.
The Americans really do have fixed election dates. Every four years. Period. Thus, by restricting a presidency to no more that two terms they can’t have a single president longer than 8 years. They don’t have ‘minority governments’ or a Governor General readily available to ‘dissolve’ them.
In Canada, we could conceivably have a thrice-elected Prime Minister that had been in office perhaps only four years.
Our system is different. To copy the Americans we would have to restrict a Prime Minister’s term of office to some specific length of time. You can imagine the problems that would create.
It’s just not workable.
#149 Frank on 08.05.15 at 1:58 am
Telecom has been significantly under-invested, with Canada lagging behind significantly in the installation of fiber optic networking to the home
Lies. We spend plenty per capita. Not our fault we’ve got a big ass country with lots of ground to cover.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
So does the USA. Competition does not make equipment cost less….
It's tax and gouge in Canada. Keep expecting it.
After re-reading and re-considering the post in the light of a new day’s morning here are my thoughts:
Citizen’s cannot control the decisions made by ones government to “improve” the economy, no matter how ill thought out the policy might be.
Citizen’s need NOT swallow the temptations offered by a lower borrowing environment. If their digs need improvements (a new roof, remodeled kitchen, or bath) and the new offerings make sense, they would be well served to take advantage if they can really ‘afford’ it.
So, if you were going to borrow say 25 large over 5 years
on a remodel is that a crime? Not necessarily on a paid for or nearly paid for home, or to fix up the dump to sell it.
Remember those interest rates will likely not stay at near zero rates, and a borrower is ALWAYS at risk!
No, you can not borrow your way to prosperity, but there are times, and reasons where a well placed loan can do more good than harm. JUST BE CAREFUL!!
So Chow is back at it again. Hum let me see………….
left city hall to go national, left national to go back to city, couldn’t do either so what did she do? Get a job teaching at Ryerson. Now she wants another crack at Trinity Spadina. I’d like to know what she teaches at Ryerson? Class 2015 Ryerson: How to be a Loser 101.
http://www.citynews.ca/2015/07/28/facts-and-figures-about-spadina-fort-york-riding/
#56 Investorz on 08.04.15 at 8:21 pm
I’m going overweight REITs. Bought more Brookfield Properties. Ticker BPY.UN.
=================================
I think it’s a mistake. You’re holding yourself hostage to one company and it’s possible missteps or stumble into the sights of big shorters and/or being in the same boat as mostly weak hands.
Just follow Sr. Turner’s guidelines. Now, I am a hypocrite, I have 60% VXC, 19.7% CPD (bought mostly at the top! lol), and XRE 18% (added the majority in early June after selling all of XIU with a decent gain). Everyday I keep wishing I rebalanced into VAB to reduce volatility. Am finding XRE far too volatile, and think that maybe American/big shorters are trying to find their ground shorting/shaking the tree on stuff like preferreds and REITs.
#195 Smoking Man on 08.05.15 at 11:50 am
They say when it comes to writing, writers read.
I disagree with this concept, I read one book from start to finish a while ago when some of you dogs pointed out the similarity with Hunter S Thompson. So I read fear and loathing.
Now I find myself in every so sentence using “of sorts ”
I want to be original, I don’t want to emulate anyone’s style..
Im not reading KV or anyone else. I chose climbing the mountains on the hard side…
…….
Damn it Tylenol, the boys where around yesterday, they’ve left the planet, a meeting of sorts back home.. They will be back in a few weeks…
____________________________________________
“This truly is a day of days”
Home Renovation Tax Credit and all of tax benefits for homeowners is stealing money from the non-homeowners to give to homeowners.
The government created the housing bubble and wants to keep it afloat, no different than what the Chinese government is trying to do with their stock market bubble.
The young keeps on getting screwed and screwed:
http://www.newworldparty.org/2012/09/screwing-young-over-and-over-again.html
According to this chap, oil prices could go a lot lower. I don’t know if he’s blowing smoke, but it’s an interesting explanation about how (he claims) oil prices are set.
http://oilpro.com/post/17197/don-t-be-surprised-if-oil-prices-hit-20?utm_source=DailyNewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_term=2015-08-04&utm_content=Article_2_txt
#197 OXI in GREECE !!
#149 Frank
Around 2002 I had $3K invested in “Group Telecom Canada”. Not very much really, but it’s interesting what happened to it.
GT had a fantastic business plan. They would drop fiber optic cables in ditches that were already being dug across the country for different purposes (gas lines etc.)
In addition, they had rolling technology to dig shallow ditches along side railroad beds and line them with communications cables as well.
They paid a relative pittance for the privilege and expected to clean up on supplying endless bandwidth to data hungry commercial customers coast to coast.
Problem was, a dozen other companies had the same idea. Some simple math reveled that just one or two fiber bundles could supply enough bandwidth to allow every man, woman and child in Canada to watch three high definition channels simultaneously 24 hours a day.
To say there was a serious overcapacity would be an understatement. My shares in GT fell to under a dollar. Then down to pennies. Then eventually… zero. That’s right. Zero. I had to sign some papers with my broker to ‘donate’ the zero valued shares so GT would no longer appear on my statement.
That was my experience with investing in the Canadian telecommunication infrastructure.
#184 Dual Citizen In Canada
actually, i don’t think it is his money any longer…
once deposited into an account…you have technically loaned the bank money…in exchange for interest payments.
it is their money (legally) at this point.
Telecom has been significantly under-invested, with Canada lagging behind significantly in the installation of fiber optic networking to the home
Lies. We spend plenty per capita. Not our fault we’ve got a big ass country with lots of ground to cover.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
So does the USA. Competition does not make equipment cost less….
It's tax and gouge in Canada. Keep expecting it.
=====================================
To the first commentor, we don't have a 'big ass country' in the telecom sense. According to Nationmaster, We have the 36th highest urban population in the world. Urban centers are significantly cheaper to wire than rural settings as anyone with half a brain knows.
http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/People/Urban-population/Per-capita
To the second point, why the hell are you bashing our internet vs. American equivalents? If anything, they have even worse service on average than we do. Look to the EU for great internet deployments, even not so weathly eastern-block countries have amazing internet offerings compared to North American equivalents. Then again, looking at the world internet speed ratings, we're actually pretty up there for raw speed projections, so I really don't know why people are whining so much (at least when comparing against other nations).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Internet_connection_speeds
#166 Turner Nation
“Whole Foods has opened another location, at Yonge and Sheppard in Toronto. Which recession?
All those condo dwellers there.”
That one has been open for a little while. A new one is under construction – entirely new build – at Eglinton and Bayview.
Try moving +$10,000 anywhere these days and see what happens. If you try and take out that kind of money cash to buy a classic car they won’t let you do it, you have to get a draft.
Last year we withdrew $12,500 cash to buy a used car from a chap in North Vancouver who had a distrust for banks…The credit union people were just worried about us getting robbed but no problem at all….
“so I really don’t know why people are whining so much (at least when comparing against other nations).”
Its not so much that there’s a crisis today, but the copper lines that make up most of the residential access networks in Canada are at the end-of-the-line in term of the ability to put faster gear on them to increase their performance.
The next hurdle is that of going to optical fibre straight to the home, sometimes called FTTH or FTTP. Typically the outlay for such is on the order of $6000-$10,000/home given Canada’s high labour costs.
If you figure there are 10 million urban homes in Canada to be served by a such a system (but not yet served), then you are looking at an investment on the order of $60B-$100B.
To say there was a serious overcapacity would be an understatement. My shares in GT fell to under a dollar. Then down to pennies. Then eventually… zero. That’s right. Zero. I had to sign some papers with my broker to ‘donate’ the zero valued shares so GT would no longer appear on my statement.
For long-haul fibre, this is absolutely correct. Because such infrastructure is shared and aggregated amongst so many users and subjected to statistical multiplexing, you don’t need a lot of physical fibre to carry a lot of signal.
My comments concerning the telecom infrastructure deficit mostly are on the residential/small business side of things. I believe such networks will eventually be built as the capital raising environment becomes more favourable for Canadian telecoms.
Obviously during the late 1990s tech bubble, it was far too easy for firms to raise capital for uneconomic projects, and hence, many investors lost their investment. This was followed by many years of quite the opposite.
As a child, I had little reverence for the plans and devices of adults. Now as the adult child of misguided parents, I assume the reins. I have little reverence for the priorities of the past. I’d sell those knick knacks you’ve been saving for posterity.
My entreprise plans forward…
– capitalizing on internet peronalities
– geriatric warehousing
– truck and dump clutter removal
– rechargeable batteries
– personal security
– sayings of the nineties tshirt co
– composting toilet technologies
– Pacific Plastic Island Condo Consortium
– hover chairs
I enjoy your blog Garth, mainly because you portray your world on it’s merits and expose incongruity. I enjoy knee jerk bafflegab of the hoi poloi in the comments section. I feel privileged to be unique, and so should you.
There’s no heir apparent qualified to manage success in the current federal arena. They are mired in the paradigms and ideologies of the past.
I have no debts, no mortgages, extensive assets and land holdings, and I’ve been involved in new technology and innovation. I am a product designer. I live meagerly, with few toys, a vegetarian who rides a bicycle, and paid for my children’s education. I’m monogamous. I’m also big on volunteerism and the arts. How do you think I feel when any political party comes cap in hand begging for support when they’ve all failed in my view? Their ilk considers me not.
My Canada has no Ottawa.
I will go back to my workshop, design my SKUs, and license them to foreign manufacturers just as I did yesterday and the day before.
#186 Mark on 08.05.15 at 10:45 am
Re: r&d monies in Canada
“Mostsly not from Canadian sources though. Which is a giant problem and has been for many years. And the sectors for which such is available is relatively narrow (ie: social media and biotech are the darlings these days — but lots of areas in the R&D complex are otherwise starved and struggling severely).”
You are reaching here. There are tons of private equity/family offices/angel groups on Canada. Sure – not compared to the US, but way more than we have had historically. In addition to all those groups, we have US investors pushing up here. The valuations increasing and more sub par deals are indicative of money moving in.
With respect to corporations not reinvesting for the future (capex/r&d), each company does as it sees fit and the market will decide if it made the right choices. RIM focused in a new hockey team and Apple/Google ate their lunch. New companies are forming with some great offerings and will continue to enhance Canada’s reputation in tech.
The sectors that are in vogue will change based on perceived opportunity. That is the same in the US as it is here. Again who are we to say where r&d monies should go. I say by where I invest (typically b2b SAAS companies).
Finally, or government has numerous and amazing programs to assist companies that pressure r&d. In my opinion, too much so. Let private enterprise sort it out. But you can bet every company I invest in leverages as much resources from government as it can. It’s awesome!
Here is a dare for you:
Read this (see link below) and act on it for a couple of months…. You will have a much better life and if not, you will feel better… ;-)
http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/02/how-to-be-the-luckiest-guy-on-the-planet-in-4-easy-steps/?utm_ad=15824&utm_placement=15&utm_medium=60
#166 TurnerNation
More people do not want to eat crap/GMO.
#208 Kilby on 08.05.15 at 2:47 pm
Try moving +$10,000 anywhere these days and see what happens. If you try and take out that kind of money cash to buy a classic car they won’t let you do it, you have to get a draft.
Last year we withdrew $12,500 cash to buy a used car from a chap in North Vancouver who had a distrust for banks…The credit union people were just worried about us getting robbed but no problem at all….
……..
That’s what casino accounts are for. :)
To NewWorldParty.org
You are looking at this the wrong way. If you don’t save, invest for yourselves by cutting out at least some useless crap buying stuff on credit, you will be way ahead of the game.
A good policy to encourage younger people to save, invest is first give a 25% tax credit match up to the $5,500.
So the maximum of $1,375 would be reinvested and not able to be taken out of these plans.
This would be from 18 to 36 years old. This is just an example, maybe there is a better way of doing this.
Also, maybe a minimum interest rate of say 4% annually as long as contributions are made yearly. Just a few ideas to consider.
The state of Canadian Telecom:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/fast-fibre-optic-internet-arrives-in-many-small-towns-before-big-cities-1.3174901?cmp=rss
“You are reaching here. There are tons of private equity/family offices/angel groups on Canada. Sure – not compared to the US, but way more than we have had historically.”
But they have a fraction of the resources available to throw against companies as compared to in the US, and most Canadian firms with any promise find the deals are far superior in the US. Its pretty hard to argue otherwise. Thus the only projects that get funded are those that can, in their view, provide short-term payoff and/or be potentially flipped to US investors in a relatively short period of time.
The root cause of this relative lack of access to capital for Canadian firms is the housing bubble. Why bother investing in R&D, when its been so much easier buying into RE and flipping it a few years later for a big profit?
With such a highly educated population, Canada’s R&D scene should be one of the brightest in the world. Yet here we stand, exporting our best and brightest, our capital markets not willing to fund many start-ups, or even provide appropriate valuation to established and highly profitable firms. At the same time, basically throwing everything but the kitchen sink at RE market participants including this latest Home Reno Tax Credit proposal. It speaks to seriously misplaced priorities which damage Canada’s economic potential over the long term.
“That is the same in the US as it is here. Again who are we to say where r&d monies should go.”
I agree with you, in that, government shouldn’t be in the business of dictating where R&D money goes. The markets should be doing that. The fact that programs like SR&ED are even required in Canada (in the view of government) speaks to a marketplace which has little to no capital available for R&D, and hence, requires significant direct government subsidy.
Its also been my experience with SR&ED that it imposes significant costs and constraints on the very businesses it is attempting to help. R&D, as well as continuing/advanced education in a progressive society is something that should be engaged in by everyone in an organization. SR&ED’s requirements effectively force a business to compartmentalize their R&D capability, so it can be properly documented and audited.
The big problem at this point seems not to be in the allocation of R&D monies, but in the mere relatively low existence of such. The high cost of capital for Canadian business features prominently into such.
#210 – family beagle
Great post… Count me in for the Pacific condo consortium
#147 Marco Polo
Stephen Harper is the victim of the era he finds himself in; of post US economic collapse and the rise of the asset bubbles, in more areas than Canadian housing alone.
……
Ok, let’s say that is true. Now, are you still willing to accept the dictatorial manner and secrecy of Harper; proroguing parliament when things are not going well for him; and, most of all, encouraging the housing bubble…and continuing to encourage it????
#208 Kilby
I took US$10K cash out of my account last year to buy a car in the US. It took 15 minutes to dig it out of the vault. Done. Finito. Next.
#52 Smoking writer on 08.04.15 at 8:08 pm
Hey Smoking Man… do you like Kurt Vonnegut’s stories?
…..
Only writer who compares to Garth is crazy Tom Robbins. Still Life with Woodpecker, Even Cowgirls get the Blues, etc. phenomenal knowledge base and one of the best comedic writer/story tellers.
#221 OnlyTheBankersLaugh on 08.05.15 at 5:56 pm
#52 Smoking writer on 08.04.15 at 8:08 pm
Hey Smoking Man… do you like Kurt Vonnegut’s stories?
…..
Only writer who compares to Garth is crazy Tom Robbins. Still Life with Woodpecker, Even Cowgirls get the Blues, etc. phenomenal knowledge base and one of the best comedic writer/story tellers.
————————————-
Wonderful wisdom on how to make a FRUIT LOOPS AND BATSHIT BOMB
Can a nation of people spend and borrow their way into prosperity?
******************************************
Isn’t there a faraway place called Greece where they tried that strategy? How did that work out?
…’The guy needs cheap slave labour, people to compete with Mexico in manufacturing.’…
Is the Canadian economy being made to fail so we can fall under one North American government, following in the footsteps of the European Union?
Mexico, the US, and Canada could become one entity…
NAFTA Superhighway, open borders, cheap labour, and one currency, leading to the death of Canada’s democracy and independence.