In researching the latest dance moves on TikTok (did you realize Michael Jackson is back?) over the weekend, a poignant vid popped up. A twentysomething girl stared into her iPhone and asked wrinklies, paleos and half-dead Boomers to share their stories about bygone hard times.
Things seem so scary and uncertain, she said. Was it ever this bad in the past?
It’s human nature to believe you live in a unique time and you’re special because of that. The economy seems broken and hopeless. Houses have never been more out of reach. The future’s clouded. Jobs are scarce. Politics is a mess. There’s a pandemic that won’t quit. So is this, like, the worst ever?
For you Millennials, it is. Bummer. You didn’t experience 22% mortgage rates, Khrushchev’s shoe-banging, the Cold War or Black Monday. Even Nine Eleven and Y2K are zeroes. But here’s the good news. This current mess will end. In fact, it’s already in sight – if you believe what the financial markets are telling us (instead of dumbass social media).
First, dear snowflakes, there’s a reason the chart of the S&P 500 (a broad measure of American companies) looks like this:
What is the stock market telling us?
That’s over one year. You can see where the virus whacked emotions on March and the subsequent recovery. Actually it’s been more like a rocket. Up 18% in a year’s time, while other indices have bene even more aroused (the Nasdaq is ahead over 40%).
So what? Markets have responded to tons of government stimulus spending as well as central banks keeping rates low and pumping buckets of cash into the system through bond purchases. That fiscal (government) and monetary (CB) stimulus just shows how the system isn’t going to let Covid win, or the future fizzle. So have faith. But there’s more – companies are making money again, so their shares are rising. Right now S&P corps are reporting earnings, which are running 23% above expectations. Tech companies are making money (BlackBerry and GameStop are the new darlings, and recently it was DoorDash and Airbnb IPOs) but so are the boring old ‘value’ companies that make cars and bum wad. The point is simple. Investors are pumped. You should be, too.
Ditto for the bond market, which is way more boring, but thirty times bigger. This is where debt is traded, and it’s been impacted by low interest rates, low inflation, low growth, central bank policy and, yes, too much virus. So yields on bonds have beewn in the ditch, which has also brought mortgages down and sent house prices up. But things are on the move here, too. Look at this chart of where investors see rates headed over the next five years.
Why? The market thinks the virus will be clipped, the economy grow rapidly in the third quarter and inflation return. Investors therefore demand a premium on bond yields (which lower bond prices) for protection. There’s no doubt, they add, the cost of money will go up as the public heath crisis fades. So the prime at the big banks may increase for the first time this summer, commencing a slow but steady ascent.
For the young, it’s good news on several fronts. More jobs and expanding opportunity as the economy reflates. Lots more hiring. More ancient, old GenXers deciding to stay as WFHers after Covid passes, opening up positions for those who understand employers want to see, touch and breath on their employees. And, of course, higher mortgage rates to halt the real estate escalation.
What? You need more?
Okay, vaccines. There are three of them in place or coming. A couple more will be added in 2021. Yes, the government has been incompetent and deceiving during the vax roll-out, but that will end. Meanwhile surveys (even on this pathetic blog) show a big majority of people are anxious to be jabbed and herd immunity will therefore be a reality.
When? The feds say by the end of September. But well before that, lockdowns, quarantines, self-isolations and restrictions will end as new infection levels decrease (happening now). That will hasten the economic reopening which equity and bond markets have been signaling.
More? Still not convinced?
Okay, there’s Biden. First, that dogawful US presidential election is over. The Proud Boys have denounced Trump, even. The Capital insurrection and riot was the last nail in the coffin of the redneck right. The 45th president lost his creds, any respect that remained, his public voice plus his sponsors and his brand. A huge disruptive force is gone. And in its place, a career administrator is running the world’s biggest economy. His first job is to vax 100 million people in 100 days, knowing there is no other way out of the quagmire. What a contrast.
Markets liked Trump’s deregulation, expansion, low-tax and growth agenda. They like Biden even more. He’s an adult.
Conclusion, moisters?
Yeah, things suck. But there’s never been a pandemic that lasted. They’re always temporary. Nor have we ever come out of an economic crisis without a surge in growth, which usually means more jobs, inflation, better wages and opportunity. It’s coming. Soon. Chill.
Now get over here and show me how to moonwalk.
152 comments ↓
Day late, being a Manchester United and Kansas City supporter translated to a full slate yesterday.
Thor, I live a 5 minute walk away from where your great-grandfather is buried.
It is a somber oasis in the middle of the city with unobstructed views of the mountains, they haven’t built condos there yet.
It is a huge cemetery, and so every time I want to walk west I cut through it one way or another, Even driving the major routes to work takes me between one of the massive sections.
There are several war sections that I try to visit in the Autumn, and my elderly father-in-law whom I take there occasionally for a stroll, likes to look at all the different religious stylings.
I looked at the cemetery website to see where Ebenezer’s grave is located as there are hundreds of loops.
I have walked by his gravestone several times, next time I will pause and take a photo for you.
It is likely where I will be buried too.
Either that or burned to a crisp, and my ashes put in the memorial wall located there.
Probably depends on how mad my Hindu wife is for leaving her alone…
M46BC
“My great-grandfather, Ebenezer Vining Bodwell, seems like a cool dude. He went to Ottawa as an MP in Canada’s first Parliament (1867). Later he ran Ontario’s Welland Canal and afterwards took over the books of the Canadian Pacific Railroad.”
By a LANDSLIDE….
Anyone else notice the steady rise in Cameco stock over the past months.
Will nuclear energy be a part of the “green” future?
The market seems to think so.
@#197 Bye Bye
“How much money do you and your friends have? How may millions do you need. Be grateful I’m not in politics.”
++++
Once again a day late and a dollar short.
Trudeau and Freeland have beaten you to your own socialist money grab game.
And then we have Jagmeet foaming at the mouth for all things socialist.
Just pray you dont get sick in the next few years after another exodus of doctors who are tired of being kicked in the teeth from the Canadian govt because ” they make too much”.
Wait times…..goin uppa uppa uppa.
Wow this summer!? I was enjoying the low rates:(
End? Maybe not for a long time. I can’t see a way out for governments at the moment – not even a vaccine will help as evidenced by what is being in said in the UK that the vaccine will not prevent further lockdowns, social distancing or mask wearing. Also, the damage has been done to the people, psychologically that is. The economy, jobs, etc., may recover at some point but it will take a lot longer to recover mentally from this I think.
It seems we have given in to Stockholm Syndrome. How’s that you ask? Here are the 4 characteristics:
1. We feel threatened – Covid-19, everyone will die (although the IFR is about 0.26%).
2. The abuser shows kindness – the government offers CERB and other money
3. We become isolated – stay home, save lives
4. Escape seems impossible – continuing lockdowns, even with a vaccine, there is still potential for lockdowns.
Combine that with the moral panic as I described last week and we have the makings of the worst mental health crisis potentially ever.
#2 Trump won
Were you dropped on your head as an infant?
‘Things seem so scary and uncertain, she said. Was it ever this bad in the past?’
After finishing Jack London’s ‘The People of the Abyss'( 1902), I am now reading George Orwell’s ‘Down and Out in Paris and London’ (1933).
One can learn a lot from reading about the past. Preparation for what might be coming, knowledge of the humble origins and hard work of those who came before us, and gratitude for their sacrifice.
The pandemic will end, but change is upon us in ways we haven’t imagined yet.
‘A change is gonna come’. Sam Cooke 1963 ( who was more talented than Michael Jackson, by the way. So was Jackie Wilson – see for yourself )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WXZmjUtlJw
The only thing pumping right now is the money printer
Karlhungus: “… all the lefties will start screaming nonsense about how trickle down economics doesn’t work”
Trickle down doesn’t work. It’s been proven (as in using real statistics and logic) time and time again. Try reading Picketty’s “Capital in the 21st Century”. His data is all available online, and has not been refuted.
If you haven’t read it, then stfu. Your unsupported “opinion” has little value.
M71ON
If your glass is half full, pour it into a smaller glass.
Perspective is everything. I felt rich when I was young with nothing, and I feel rich now when… well, let’s just leave it at rich.
would the banks increase prime without the bank of Canada increasing the lending rate. That doesn’t seem like it would be the right thing to do
#8 the Jaguar on 01.25.21 at 3:30 pm
‘Things seem so scary and uncertain, she said. Was it ever this bad in the past?’
After finishing Jack London’s ‘The People of the Abyss'( 1902), I am now reading George Orwell’s ‘Down and Out in Paris and London’ (1933).
One can learn a lot from reading about the past. Preparation for what might be coming, knowledge of the humble origins and hard work of those who came before us, and gratitude for their sacrifice.
———–
Dear gods, J., if you truly enjoy deeply depressing historical books, here’s an unpleasant reading list to continue with: The Jungle, Wiesel’s ‘Night’, anything by Khaled Hosseini or Solzhenitsyn, The Bell Jar, Mowat’s ‘People of the Deer’…
Or just stark, but not really depressing: Proulx, Hemingway, all Cormac McCarthy books.
Then, when you’ve had your fill of depression, proceed to interesting historical fiction by Michener, Jack Whyte, Bernard Cornwell… even the Bible and Book of Mormon
All this artificial CB stimulus is creating rising artificial market demands and hyperinflation of stocks and real estate.
Translation: “I don’t have any.” – Garth
How German stocks held up during HyperInflation
https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-what-happened-to-stocks-during-the-german-hyperinflation-2011-11
Maybe even better than Gold?
Hyperinflation will not happen in your lifetime or that of your children. – Garth
Another elected rep (they travelled we were told) or high up leader (GG) gone. Are we up to 25 axed in January yet? How is not a soft coup. A Kommunist Purge.
|Brampton MP Ramesh Sangha dropped from Liberal caucus, accused of spreading ‘baseless and dangerous’ claims|
—— Once again this guy gets it, the control over travel is the goal:
“https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/canadians-told-to-stay-in-their-home-province-and-cancel-all-travel-plans-1.5279068?
” Martin Firestone with Travel Secure believes if it becomes increasingly difficult to travel, people will just stay home.
“They are putting all these layers in place for only one reason and that is to deter you or de-incentivize you from traveling,” Firestone said.”
…
All about control over movements. The A.I. will run it all. See people get soft or careless. The A.I. is ruthless.
It has been said that the world was conquered by use of only two terms: ASYMPTOMATIC and MANDATORY.
https://www.nbc12.com/2021/01/24/vcu-using-app-verify-if-students-can-enter-certain-buildings/
VCU using app to verify if students can enter certain buildings
The tool will indicate if the person has completed their daily health check, a required survey that asks if the person is experiencing COVID-19 symptoms. A green check indicates the survey was completed and the student is cleared for entry.
The app will also indicate if the person has complied
with mandatory asymptomatic surveillance testing.
…….
Control over our food and animals. Seems the Mink cull might have been a test. Farm animals next, begin with control over our pets?
All that fake meat is sitting there waiting to be sold…
From UK Sky news:
Domestic animals such as cats and dogs may one day need vaccinating against COVID to curb the spread of the virus, scientists say.
In an editorial for the journal Virulence, experts from the University of East Anglia (UEA) wrote that continued evolution of the virus in animals followed by transmission to humans “poses a significant long-term risk to public health”. “It is not unthinkable that vaccination of some domesticated animal species might… be necessary to curb the spread of the infection,” they said.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/modern-wheat-a-perfect-chronic-poison-doctor-says/
Modern wheat a “perfect, chronic poison,” doctor says
Davis said that the wheat we eat these days isn’t the wheat your grandma had: “It’s an 18-inch tall plant created by genetic research in the ’60s and ’70s,” he said on “CBS This Morning.” “This thing has many new features nobody told you about, such as there’s a new protein in this thing called gliadin. It’s not gluten. I’m not addressing people with gluten sensitivities and celiac disease. I’m talking about everybody else because everybody else is susceptible to the gliadin protein that is an opiate. This thing binds into the opiate receptors in your brain and in most people stimulates appetite, such that we consume 440 more calories per day, 365 days per year.”
Here’s what I’ve been working on this year, so far.
When I got back from the medical clinic on New Years Eve, from getting my surgical stitches out, upon returning home my wife asked me what I was going to do now.
Can’t do much, probably should do that Financial Facelift I have been muttering about instead of kicking it down the road for another year.
When you jump on a plane as a young man thinking you are going away for a couple of years and never return, it can take a while to sort all these things out.
My parents got me two mutual fund salesmen in the living room for my 18th birthday.
Sign on the dotted line and nobody dies.
Had already started an apprenticeship, there was a fund for that one.
Went and worked a a resort, fund.
Before I knew it they were all over the place, they have been handballed from corporation to corporation over the following decades.
Same for banking, regional bank was taken over by nationwide one, I haven’t had full control for nearly 20 years.
Anyway, the past few weeks I have been rolling all my superannuation funds into one, named my wife as beneficiary, full online account, will just let it all compound the next decade or two, while I chip away at things on this end.
Then I tried to do my TFSA contribution for the year, my guy at the bank had gone missing again, last year I had to wait for him to come out of quarantine.
I didn’t mind going once a year, but perhaps emboldened by my streamlining of my financial affairs in Australia, I thought I should just keep going here.
Opened up an online TSFA account and moved everything over.
Way lower fees, and obviously way more convenient, but I won’t be day trading anytime soon, having to go to the bank stopped me from doing anything rash but I accepted I had never sold anything in 2000 or 2008 during the busts.
I always joked on here I’m about 15 years behind everyone, I’m a face to face guy, hate talking on the phone, but this pandemic seemingly has made me accept that it is not the early 2000s anymore.
I have been working for 30 years, 2/3rds done, the last period is about the begin when I go back to work, still got a few things to sort out, but when you’re an ugly bastard like me a Financial Facelift can be long and painful.
Where did that second chin come from…
M46BC
Morale boosting.
Nicely done Garth.
CONTRARIAN
There is also Yersinia Pestis that “plagued” humanity from 541–549 AD (The Plague of Justinian) and it too, like Covid, loved to travel for the time.
It made a few other guest appearances (mutations), for example Black Death (1347–1351) and Black Death (the second plague pandemic) that devastated Eurasia in the 14th century.
It isn’t over until the Fat Bug sings.
The Markets, like many economists, have correctly predicted 9 of the last 5 recessions (quip).
https://www.forbes.com/sites/briandomitrovic/2018/11/22/the-stock-market-has-predicted-nine-of-the-past-five-recessions/?sh=4af82d2e3d74
—————————–
CONFORMIST
Mercifully and this time around, the Markets are predicting good times and not bad.
Let’s hope they got it right.
Was looking at longer term (10 year) mortgage rates today just to see where things were at. Noticed that there are now 3 banks offering competitive (under 3%) 10 year fixed mortgages. They are of course competing for business with the mortgage brokers, who have been offering a 2.84% 10 year fixed rate for quite some time now. A couple more banks are also offering a 10 year fixed term, but are also charging more than 3%. Still, looks like an opportunity to keep mortgage payments affordable for those who can take advantage of it.
#14 S.Bby
Translation: “I don’t have any.” – Garth
You ever heard of Upton Sinclair ?
Why would anyone buy bonds now if they believing bond yields are going up in the future ? You could buy stocks, but the time was last March. You can sit cash, but the government is rapidly devaluing every dollar and wages with their printing press. The people with assets made out like bandits over the past year, and it’s not going to be easy to fix.
I think Pierre Poilievre makes a lot of sense:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIfP0FfHC9g&lc=UgzGPWMqDXD4SJVNGFp4AaABAg.9IxOA35rCGo9IxORB0pyqX&ab_channel=PierrePoilievre
With the levels of debt we have, isn’t it likely that a debt crisis is on the horizon?
Holy smokes! Should have expanded the 10 year drop down when I was looking at it – didn’t, since normally the lowest rates are all at the top of the menu. Turns out that 9 banks are now offering 10 year fixed terms. Two banks are offering lower rates than the mortgage broker. Lowest rate on offer is from Tangerine – a smoking low 2.14% 10 year fixed term! So now I’m wondering whether this falls under the ‘too good to be true’ set of rules.
#11 Sail Away on 01.25.21 at 3:38 pm
If your glass is half full, pour it into a smaller glass.
Perspective is everything. I felt rich when I was young with nothing, and I feel rich now when… well, let’s just leave it at rich.
Trouble is most folks view the glass as half empty, not pondering on the full part at all and the cycle of keeping up with the Jones begins.
You may be rich but Galen is wealthy. Big difference.
I’m invited to go fishing every year with the kind of people who own their own Gulf Island. Not because I hang with that crowd on the reg but because I can catch fish, coho being my jam. Apparently quite the competition to get assigned onto my boat. Anyway, listening to these guys, drinking and having meals with them, drives home the significant difference between being rich and having wealth.
Plant a tree that your grandchildren will enjoy. Dogs and teepees won’t be around then.
“Conclusion, moisters?”
‘Conclusion’? We’re just getting started, LOL!
Actually, it’s the Paleo Boomers who will be coming to a ‘conclusion’ soon. Their demographic influence as well as, sadly, their lives, will mostly be over within the next decade or less, but please hang around as long as possible so we can make fun of you!
What will change, dramatically, is the economic trickle down wealth disparity mess that Boomer Cons have created, as well as the blindsighted environmental disaster that has been bestowed upon younger generations.
Boomers, be part of the change.
Or be run over by it. (And forgotten. Or remembered only with regret)
Change of subject?
Question to Blog Dogs (and Garth’s wisdom).
Would you ignore T2 and travel to Hawaii at end of week for 2 months or so?
Curious: The growth rate in the SPX since the March bottom is substantially steeper than that over the previous 10 year horizon (which was quite solid to begin with). I see this as the fed fuelling high growth rates in equities on top of an exuberant market looking ahead to better days. SPX has been trading along the bottom edge of that growth range for the past few weeks. Tested it again today.
Unanswerable questions: Will the index transition back down to the lower average growth rate? If it does, will it happen through an inflection or will there be a step-down? I chart the upper range of the 10 year growth band at about 3720 right now. S+P closed today at 3855. The transition would be a ~3.5% drop which I see as a reasonable correction after a very strong three months since the end of October.
Any thoughts
Was it ever this bad in the past?
Well, of course. In the past century it’s been worse several times. 2 World Wars, a pandemic, a depression.
But I’m 53 and it’s never in my memory have things been this bad. The debt-reductions cutbacks in government spending of the early to mid-90s just as I was graduating (I’m a slow learner, OK, lol?) weren’t great from a personal point of view. Fortunately the internet took off and work in the IT business has been good ever since.
I feel for young people today, missing out on opportunities for school, work, sports, etc because of COVID. You’re only a kid once, and some opportunities only come along once in a lifetime. I hope you’re right and there will be a big boom coming out of this, which will at least undo some of the damage.
First, dear snowflakes, there’s a reason the chart of the S&P 500 (a broad measure of American companies) looks like this
—————————
You know full well that the reason the S&P looks like that is because of trillions in QE and ZIRP from criminal central banks which have mostly enriched the wealthy while driving the bottom 50-75% even further into the ditch. And the S&P 500 is really just the S&P 6, driven by a tiny number of cultish mega-caps with PE ratios rivaling the dotcom bubble. When you remove those from the equation, the markets never regained the Feb 2020 highs.
I’m not bearish in the intermediate term – I’ve said here repeatedly that we are in a blowoff top and that this will continue likely until mid to late spring (just my guess). I am invested in S&P and Nasdaq ETFs, among other things. I think Nasdaq could well hit 18,000. But I do not delude myself into thinking this is sustainable, healthy, or moral.
The current levels of wealth inequality match or surpass 1929. You cannot have such extreme inequality sustain for very long in a democracy so one way or another, this gap WILL be dealt with. Hope everyone has a trailing stop.
#13 Sail Away on 01.25.21 at 4:07 pm
++
I don’t find them depressing. They’re a window into a time where safety nets and other things we take for granted didn’t exist.
My next read is Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca. Fiction. I’ve never gotten around to it before.
Unless you want to send me your diary, Sail Away. I might need the 3D glasses for that one…
In regards to yesterdays article, why is the Gov not going after a Capital Gains tax on the sale of principal residence like they do in the US since they are looking for new ways of getting tax money? Do you think this is under consideration?
Generational divide is real, but MJ will always remain the King.
#21 alexinvestor on 01.25.21 at 4:39 pm
Why would anyone buy bonds now if they believing bond yields are going up in the future ? You could buy stocks, but the time was last March. You can sit cash, but the government is rapidly devaluing every dollar…
********************
I recently rebalanced back to 20% HTB.TO which is US 7-10y treasury bonds.
Up 0.67% today. Really though the point of having an asset like this which in bad times moves opposite to the S&P500 is to
1. Calm the nerves by reducing overall portfolio
2. So that you have something to sell to free up cash in order to buy what’s on sale.
I handily beat a 60/40 with my all-equity PF in 2019, but I almost barfed in March 2020. More than once. It was also disappointing when I really felt that late March was the bottom and yet couldn’t capitalize on that in any way (I certainly didn’t have the stomach for leverage at that point, especially not at the outrageous margin rates offered)
Going all-in on S&P500 this year would be at 2.8% YTD vs my 2.57% (VGRO is at 2.34%)
I can live with that.
#31 SoggyShorts on 01.25.21 at 5:02 pm
*
1. Calm the nerves by reducing overall portfolio [volatility]
#3 Trudeau’s Magic Money Machine on 01.25.21 at 3:09 pm
Anyone else notice the steady rise in Cameco stock over the past months.
Will nuclear energy be a part of the “green” future?
The market seems to think so.
—————————————–
Most definitely. Uranium stocks have finally caught a bid after a gruelling 10-year bear market post-Fukushima. I bought some Cameco last year but I’m in no rush to buy more as I think it will be flat for the next few months after that initial run.
Also, take a look at rare earths. Same story.
I understand that nobody wants to do or say anything that might affect the market or RE negatively, but there’s lots of data that shows we’re not going to survive at current status quo much longer. Has anyone looked at debt to gdp charts lately? Canada leads the world by a longshot.
What are afraid of? There will be no default. – Garth
Seems that current homeowners are sitting on uncashed lottery tickets.
With prices up 20-25% in Ottawa for 2020, I’m surprised there isn’t more selling into a high demand market.
The question always seems to be what do we do after we sell?
Good for people looking to downsize or expecting to move in the near future.
_____________________________
Full disclosure I’m a recently licensed real estate agent.
I see your bond chart and yes yields have moved off the lows, but the 20yr Gov’t Can yield is still around 1.25%. How can you really make the argument for inflation if this is the yield people are willing to park money at for 20years?
#16 TurnerNation on 01.25.21 at 4:17 pm
Maybe that explains why I ate the better part of a third of a loaf of my home-made, hand crafted, artisinal whole wheat sourdough as part of both breakfast and lunch today?
Luckily, the bread brought me much pleasure (toasted just so and dripping with butter and jam) and the run I will go on later today will also bring me much pleasure while simultaneously offsetting any caloric excess and improving my cardiovascular health. Baking bread brings me a sense of mindfulness and accomplishment and joy when I give it to friends. Seems like a good deal to me all around.
Extreme stances on diet are the get-rich-quick of the health/weight loss world. It’s quite simple:
“Eat food, not too much, mostly plants” — Michael Pollan
If you eat moderate amounts of real food and do so in social settings and with a sense of joy, you will be healthier.
Fight Inflation Raise the Interest rates…
Fight Unemployment Lower the rates…
Borrowing money to PROP UP the Stock Market and Housing is enormous debt service expense.
The result will be the slide of American currency VS others countries. (devaluation)
That’s tougher for Canadian exports as their dollar slides against ours.
Remember, When you see clear sign of a bubble, identifiable, quantifiable real estate bubble; so does everyone else.
The Time to exit the bubble is near the top; Not after.
Y2K’21
What a ride!
David Pylyp
Toronto
…meanwhile back in the European Union.
1. The latest plague map from the ECDC (UK gone, color it in on your own…the really, really dark chocolate colored shade recommended):
https://i.imgur.com/2B0qLSl.png
2. PM Conte to resign. He had a good run by Italian standards (29th PM since WWII). Nobody in Italia really cares anymore, including me. The idea here is that one thief will be replaced with a whole new set of thieves in Gov.
3. UK Health Minister: Pressure on NHS front line ‘relentless’. English subtlety thrown out the door. The English way of saying: it’s gone from bad, to worse, to whatever comes after that…oh, that’s relentless.
4. Eindhoven’s burning cops cars, looting ’cause of a curfew on top of what they have already. Outgoing PM Rutte calls them “criminal”. Ya, he’s on his way out too not just PM Conte in Italia, some scandal there.
5. Italian’s suing Pfizer for breach of contract. EU obliges AstraZeneca to report doses produced and where they are sent besides also threatening to sue Pfizer. Meanwhile the Germans cut a side deal with BioNTech for 50M additional doses (yeah! European “Union”).
…and finally, CASES?
6. That’s so YESTERDAY. Cases down mostly in the EU but Deaths well that’s another matter:
https://i.imgur.com/ObHQPMN.png
Spot the countries where the UK Variant (more deadly) has taken over (Hint: exponential) and rumoured to be coming to other European mainland countries in March (Canada as well in case you were wondering).
What I have been sparing you all for weeks now:
Just another Covid Day in the EU.
——————–
Some good news though, Der Spiegel, Il Giornale still hate everybody (the latter except the Pope) and you still need sunglasses to read Bild and The Daily Star.
And those a good signs for a return to normalcy.
PS:
Deutsche Welle still thinks its Don Quixote (more normalcy). El Pais and El Mundo abandoned that years ago.
I’m a gen x-er. I remember the 80’s, high inflation and high house prices. The real conundrum happened 10 years later when housing was stagnant. I think this 30 year cycle is about to start in the next few years. Be patient as the economic bell curve starts to descend. Then I may be a house buyer once again.
Well that’s one way to spin a conversation.
The virus is coming to an end, effective treatments are popping up and the vaccine is being rolled out, give it a month and things will really look different than they are now. Most things will go back to the way it was before the pandemic, unfortunately some businesses will have been lost, but other’s will see it as an opportunity and start up another business in their place. Now if they can find the cure for cancer, heart disease, diabetes……
Well, this certainly isn’t dumbass social media— but it is a very thorough breakdown of what is currently worrying scientists about the new variants…
https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/01/23/1016684/whether-jnj-vaccine-works-against-scary-south-african-coronavirus-variant/
REMEMBER: The flu pandemic of 1918 was followed by the Roaring 20’s … :)
#36 Pete on 01.25.21 at 5:10 pm
I understand that nobody wants to do or say anything that might affect the market or RE negatively, but there’s lots of data that shows we’re not going to survive at current status quo much longer. Has anyone looked at debt to gdp charts lately? Canada leads the world by a longshot.
What are afraid of? There will be no default. – Garth
———————————–
Huh? Debt doesn’t matter now, Garth? Have the MMT people gotten to you?
Here’s what one can be afraid of.
There will no default. But, here’s how it can unfold :
– Continued deficit spending requires continued bond issuance.
– Nobody is interested in buying our garbage notes. So, Uncle Tiff has to step in and monetize the bonds.
– Do this long enough and you’ve nationalized the bond market, killed the CAD, decreased the purchasing power and standard of living of wage earners which leads to increased social unrest.
– Government must then step in with UBI to calm the impoverished masses….which requires more deficit spending, more bond issuance, and more CAD devaluation
– Rinse and repeat until the system implodes.
Greater chance of an asteroid strike. – Garth
#29 Howard on 01.25.21 at 4:53 pm
I agree with your post except this:
Nope, not supported by the data and you aren’t following the occult very closely! Just pay attention to Sail Away’s pumps and you’ll be pretty close to the tiktok crowd.
Gains from March bottom (when the money printing and deficit spending began in earnest):
Cap weighteds:
SPY: 72%
VONE: 77%
Equal weights:
RSP: 84%
EQAL: 96%
From Feb highs the ordering is EQAL, VONE, SPY, RSP and all are 10% or more above the Feb 2020 top.
Fact is that, in the present market, the cap weighted indexes might be better viewed as the laggards and your positioning is very defensible at the least. FAANGM (or maybe without the N as rising rates will kill Netflix via debt servicing) are fantastic companies that have been ignored as the crowd has chased small caps, financials and energy. Lets see what earnings season tells us.
The picture for the future sounds all too rosy. Get ready for a pullback.
#25 Millennial Realist on 01.25.21 at 4:46 pm
“Conclusion, moisters?”
‘Conclusion’? We’re just getting started, LOL!
Actually, it’s the Paleo Boomers who will be coming to a ‘conclusion’ soon. Their demographic influence as well as, sadly, their lives, will mostly be over within the next decade or less, but please hang around as long as possible so we can make fun of you!
What will change, dramatically, is the economic trickle down wealth disparity mess that Boomer Cons have created, as well as the blindsighted environmental disaster that has been bestowed upon younger generations.
Boomers, be part of the change.
Or be run over by it. (And forgotten. Or remembered only with regret)
———————-
Yoh buddy… you can vote your way into communism but you will likely have to shoot your way out of it. You choose. The boomers will be gone and you’ll have a mess to clean up that you know not how to fix because you have no interest in learning wisdom from your elders. Oh yes, you know everything right and you’re likely wealthy – NOT.
#30 the Jaguar on 01.25.21 at 4:57 pm
#13 Sail Away on 01.25.21 at 4:07 pm
I don’t find them depressing. They’re a window into a time where safety nets and other things we take for granted didn’t exist.
———-
I hear you. When I read those, I subconsciously compare poor conditions then to poor, say downtown Van East Side, conditions now. Different but not actually that different. Desperate is desperate. Try McCarthy’s Suttree. Yow.
Equally, nonfiction and historical fiction that doesn’t specifically concentrate on the poor gives a different taste. Such as… Two Years Before the Mast, Moby Dick, John Muir, Thoreau, War and Peace, Three Against the Wilderness, hey- even Great Gatsby’s pretty good for that… and the 1930’s Paris bohemian boomtimes flock of writers.
More people died from currently-preventable things then, but there was also the same joie de vivre as ever.
Truly horrific are the brutal enslavement of indigenous work forces in South America, PNW sea otter trade, early Amazon rubber days, Mexico silver mines.
Black Monday
…is an EXCELLENT and HILARIOUS TV show with Don Cheadle. 2 Seasons of never ending 80s FUN! Renewed for 3rd season. ENJOY!
#35 Howard on 01.25.21 at 5:07 pm
#3 Trudeau’s Magic Money Machine on 01.25.21 at 3:09 pm
Anyone else notice the steady rise in Cameco stock over the past months.
Will nuclear energy be a part of the “green” future?
The market seems to think so.
———
Yes! GVP is my holding- controls, training and operations. Off the charts this year.
Well i have observed a lot of children coming of age during the 90’s early 21st century…and now…I have no worries if the ones I know lead our nation foward.
#48 Faron on 01.25.21 at 5:48 pm
Just pay attention to Sail Away’s pumps and you’ll be pretty close to the tiktok crowd.
———
Funny, Faron.
But you know what’s funnier? if you had actually followed along instead of ridiculing, your house would now be paid off… and you wouldn’t be doing that foolish OTM stuff.
A little advice: There is no such thing as ‘fun’ money. Just money. Treat it with respect.
#3 Trudeau’s Magic Money Machine
Will nuclear energy be a part of the “green” future?
—————————–
It better be.
Otherwise, it hasn’t got a wind turbine’s chance in hell.
“Markets liked Trump’s deregulation, expansion, low-tax and growth agenda. They like Biden even more. He’s an adult.”
A 78 year old adult who appears to be on the down go. But you never know, Pelosi is in her 80’s and she’s still going. Although I don’t think I was ever really convinced she was sane.
Based on Biden’s first day in office I think his presidency is going to possibly one of the worst ever, even if he is a much more likable guy then trump. What’s he done so far? Cancelled Keystone XL. Cancelled scholarships for women athletes and perhaps destroyed the definition of women’s sports altogether. Released all the detained illegal immigrants. Promised a path to citizenship for up to 11 million more (they already have one but I guess all qualifications are going out the window). Promoted a “domestic terrorism” act.
And more. Combine this with the socialist lean of his supporters and the US could be a very different place by the end of his term, and not for the better in my opinion. But we shall see.
#26 Armpit on 01.25.21 at 4:46 pm
Change of subject?
Question to Blog Dogs (and Garth’s wisdom).
Would you ignore T2 and travel to Hawaii at end of week for 2 months or so?
/////
Ab-so-lute-ly!!!!
#39 Faron on 01.25.21 at 5:16 pm
#16 TurnerNation on 01.25.21 at 4:17 pm
that is an opiate. This thing binds into the opiate receptors in your brain
Maybe that explains why I ate the better part of a third of a loaf of my home-made, hand crafted, artisinal whole wheat sourdough as part of both breakfast and lunch today?
Luckily, the bread brought me much pleasure (toasted just so and dripping with butter and jam) and the run I will go on later today will also bring me much pleasure while simultaneously offsetting any caloric excess and improving my cardiovascular health. Baking bread brings me a sense of mindfulness and accomplishment and joy when I give it to friends. Seems like a good deal to me all around.
Extreme stances on diet are the get-rich-quick of the health/weight loss world. It’s quite simple:
“Eat food, not too much, mostly plants” — Michael Pollan
If you eat moderate amounts of real food and do so in social settings and with a sense of joy, you will be healthier.
////////////////
Wow! You seem to know everything about everything don’t you! My hero. /s
‘Things seem so scary and uncertain, she said. Was it ever this bad in the past?’
When the oil market collapsed in the early 80’s my dad lost his business, his house, his life savings, and had no work. He was dragging a wife a 4 kids around. We moved twice in 1 year as he couldn’t foot the bills. Finally my grandmother bailed him out with her meager savings (which he later repaid). I can’t imagine what that felt like.
He’s doing better now though but he’s getting kicked again as his retirement income has been cut in half by covid. To be fair, he wasn’t very diversified. His idea of “diversification” is to own more than one type of commercial real estate.
My grandparents, on the other hand, lived in Holland through the second war and the Nazi occupation. That pretty much left them with nothing also and kids in tow. So once the dust settled they packed up everything they still had left into a few suitcases and headed here, as so many did.
There was no CERB in those days.
So yes I would say the snowflakes have no idea. This is but a mild inconvenience. Except for the dead people part but we aren’t getting anywhere near WWII on that front yet.
#50 ‘Squire’ – don’t get too hung up on the idiocy of M.R. I mean, this is someone so clueless that they think Boomers will cease to exist in a decade or less. Just smile & anticipate the day when M.R. gets called ‘Sir’ or ‘Ma’am’ by a younger person. It will come, unless M.R. gets run over by a Boomer:)
Garth, as usual very informative and interesting analyze.
From yours opinion:
….You can see where the virus whacked emotions on March and the subsequent recovery. Actually it’s been more like a rocket. Up 18% in a year’s time, while other indices have bene even more aroused (the Nasdaq is ahead over 40%)…..
What do you think about opinion thgis guy: …The irony for bears though is that it’s exactly what we want to hear. It’s a classic precursor of the ultimate break; together with stocks rising, not for their fundamentals, but simply because they are rising.Another more measurable feature of a late-stage bull, from the South Sea bubble to the Tech bubble of 1999, has been an acceleration3 of the final leg, which in recent cases has been over 60% in the last 21 months to the peak, a rate well over twice the normal rate of bull market ascents. This time, the U.S. indices have advanced from +69% for the S&P 500 to +100% for the Russell 2000 in just 9 months. Not bad! And there may still be more climbing to come. But it has already met this necessary test of a late-stage bubble….
Full is here: https://www.gmo.com/americas/research-library/waiting-for-the-last-dance/
Predictable. So don’t invest. Stay with cash. See how that works out for your future. – Garth
#21 alexinvestor on 01.25.21 at 4:39 pm
Why would anyone buy bonds now if they believing bond yields are going up in the future ? You could buy stocks, but the time was last March. You can sit cash, but the government is rapidly devaluing every dollar and wages with their printing press. The people with assets made out like bandits over the past year, and it’s not going to be easy to fix.
———
Which is why my fixed income is broken out with VSB at just under 10% and ZPR at a little over 24%. Overall return on my B&D portfolio is currently 4.09% YTD. It may be risky to not have an aggregate bond ETF like VAB in the mix but I think it is currently riskier to actually hold it. Grow pref shares! grow!
I lived with my grandmother for about 8 summers and we would spend many hours chatting about things. She was just old enough to remember a bit of the boat trip over to come to Canada. When they got here they lived in a dugout (hole in the ground) covered over with a log roof with another family for a couple of years until they could build their own house. She was the oldest daughter in a family with 12 kids. She got married at 18 to a widower 10 years older than her whose wife was killed in a buggy accident leaving a baby daughter. My grandfather had a ruptured appendix a couple of years later so they had to move 60 miles away and work for a large farmer milking cows and baking bread for two years to pay the medical bills. During the 1930s they didn’t notice much difference other than that there were more people leaving their farms in the south and moving north. They were so dirt poor that they couldn’t get any poorer so it didn’t matter. They kept the old house for a while, it was 16X20 feet and they had 4 kids.
She had scars from smallpox, survived scarlet fever and survived the 1918 pandemic. My grandfather survived rheumatic fever, he dropped down to 87 pounds and my grandmother said she would pray every night that he would die so that he wouldn’t have to suffer so much. He got better because he was insanely tough, like one of those Marvel Universe guys.
She was always happy (I have never seen her in a bad mood) and very grateful for all that she had. She never complained, ever. I treasure those summers and try to be like her as much as I can. People complaining about things drives me crazy. Nobody has anything to complain about in Canada. (I guess I should stop complaining about people complaining but I think that is the only thing that somebody is justified in complaining about)
This crisis is not the problem, it’s the next crisis.
2008/9 Financial Crisis – government crashed interest rates, spent billions with a huge increase to the debt.
Government never got the interest rate back to where it was prior to the last crisis and never repaid a dollar of the money borrowed for the last crisis.
2020/21 Covid Crisis – government crashed interest rates, spent billions with a massive increase to the debt.
Will government get the interest rate back to where it was prior to the last crisis and repaid money borrowed for the last crisis. I’m doubtful.
20__ ?????? Crisis – government will crash interest rates and borrow and spend unimaginable amounts of money. Will it work this time?
I’m no doomsayers, but when does historic debt at every level – household, city, province, country – matter?
Ok, now time for more “wealth tax” talk. Not about housing because I covered that yesterday. Let’s look at stocks.
The formula for the “market capitalization” (MC) for a company is the share price based on the latest settle or “price” (P) times the number of shares (N), so:
MC = P * N
Pretty simple right? PS what we call “wealth” when we refer to someone who owns shares, we really mean his percentage of the market cap.
So let’s take an example of a company with 10 million shares that trades at $20.
MC = $20 x 10,000,000 = $200,000,000
But then the Robinhood traders come in and on relatively small volume push the price to $40:
MC = $40 x 10,000,000 = $400,000,000
Now, there are cases where this new “wealth” could be based on rising earnings expectations, and the Robinhood traders have just corrected a low price outlook. But what if earnings expectations are unchanged? Is any of this new “wealth” real? No it is not. It is notional. We just imagined that the wealth doubled when in fact that cannot be known until someone starts selling and converts the notional value to cash.
That, my friends, is why capital gains taxes work but wealth taxes do not. Wealth is not money. “Wealth” is a notional mark-to-market fiction.
Please vote on the stupidest comment of all time:
1. “And the budget will balance itself.” JT
2. “I don’t see a financial crisis occuring in our lifetimes.” Janet Yellen.
God or whoever you believe in, PLEASE HELP US ALL.
#44 Franco
Not to dampen your enthusiasm, which is admirable, you do realize that Canada as of Week 3 2021 is this many vaccinations behind schedule to meet Trudeau’s all vax’d by Sept End, Week 39 2021:
1.7M
and that’s single doses, let alone 2 doses.
Herd Immunity, latest estimate per Manaus Brazil is 76% (and climbing). As of Week 3 Canada is this many behind schedule to achieve 76% herd immunity:
1.1M
again single doses.
Help will arrive when Novavax results known and if approved 52M doses from them, earliest by May.
If Canada approves AstraZeneca 20M doses ordered they will be fine though at present they are having delivery problems, lower here in the EU, so same story for Canada as Pfizer – no millions of doses in Feb try a few 100 thousand from the latter instead. Moderna no huge numbers, 100’s of thousands and not millions of doses (scroll to 2nd table):
https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/2019-novel-coronavirus-infection/prevention-risks/covid-19-vaccine-treatment/vaccine-rollout.html
———————-
As of Week 3, Canada has a snowball’s hope in Hades of vaxing all by Sept end 2021.
To add INSULT to accident, 95% efficacy (Pfizer, Moderna) means 5% vax’d will NOT get immunity. That 5% adds up to this in Canada:
1.6M
ALL of the above assumes the UK variant will be held at bay here in Canada though warnings already (SFU study, Mar it may take hold in Canada) that if it comes deaths and cases will be exponential, kind of like this (spot countries with UK variant and not [yet]):
https://i.imgur.com/ObHQPMN.png
I say enjoy the Feb lull and let things play out hopefully for the better. Having said that, it is not yet looking good.
PS in my next missive I will discuss why “unrealized capital gains taxes” are really just “wealth taxes” and thus also don’t work. But I will save that for tomorrow.
And if Bonds ever get too high, the FED HAS TO TAPER or the entire PONZI of the markets EXPLODES.
Blow off top, crash then more printing, stocks to infinity and we turn into Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
What would you rather have?
Did you hear Biden today? He’s taking this buy American further than any of them have before him. We could be in for some tough slogging with him on trade. Some of what he spouted would be against the existing free trade agreements, as I heard it. Thing is most of what he is concerned with actually is much more Mexico than us, he isn’t making the distinction.
Jackson stole the moonwalk it was done years before he was even born.
Armpit on 01.25.21 at 4:46 pm
Change of subject?
Question to Blog Dogs (and Garth’s wisdom).
Would you ignore T2 and travel to Hawaii at end of week for 2 months or so?
=================
Check Worldometer covid for Hawaii.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/hawaii/
I would like to go there now for a couple o’ months. You might even be able to get a good house rental on the Big Island too.
Which island were you thinking to visit?
Cheers, R
22,000 fans will be allowed to attend this years Super Bowl in Tampa.
I thought I didn’t have a hope in he’ll of going and then I remembered what the name of the stadium is in Tampa.
Raymond James Stadium.
Who knows anyone connected to Raymond James?
Anyone?
There it is, the one hope of me watching the Kansas City Chiefs win this years Super Bowl.
When I started supporting them in 2013, let’s face it, they sucked, now they are one of the most exciting sports teams on the planet.
Just gonna reach out to my old buddy at Raymond James Lunenberg Office to see if he wants to head down to Florida to have a few brewski’s six feet apart in the VIP box.
Nope, he’s still blocking my number…
M46BC
@#25 Millenial Mewl-ist
a youtube story from me to you that will echo down through the ages…….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x7WGKtbUJY
#55 Sail Away on 01.25.21 at 6:18 pm
….The 45th president lost his creds, any respect that remained, his public voice plus his sponsors and his brand….
Garth, I’m thinking this is not Canadian folk problems. We don’t care – USA people should care.
For me only economical relation between Canada-USA is important. First – economy, others on second place!
From economy point in my opinion Trump was the best. Look – Obama cancel KeystoneXL – Trump restore. Biden – again cancel and in very rude manner, by the way, for us – in his first day in office! Without any discussing with Canada – USA main partner. After billions was invested! So, Trump gave Canadians thousands job and garantied future profit from oil, which we have more than enough. Logical conclusion – Trump for us was the best. Biden…. will see!
Okay, I’m dumb enough to fail at closing HTML tags :-).
In the 80’s, I picked up a little folded instruction sheet for moon walking that was littering a sidewalk, which had come out of a Hostess chip bag.
Stand on the arched foot, drag the flat foot.
You have to rock your hips unnaturally to switch feet so it is hard to balance. You have to mime with the arms to compensate. Michael did a thing with his palms facing down. It works best on slippery ground.
As a shabby old boomer, I can really mess up a fast food joint by moon walking my way out the door. Or cross an intersection doing it. It really shines going through a bar full of drunks at a resort.
You go, Garth!
Art Berman is one of my top three big crushes. (Nigel Wright and Evan Siddell being the other two…). Here is a recent interview about where ‘oil’ is going. The first thirty minutes are with Art. I bailed after that because I don’t like that ‘Blah, blah, Ginger” investment stuff.
An interesting listen:
https://www.investing.com/analysis/will-an-oil-price-spike-be-the-next-blow-to-the-economy-200556132
@#64 George S on 01.25.21 at 7:03 pm
I lived with my grandmother for about 8 summers and we would spend many hours chatting about things. She was just old enough to remember a bit of the boat trip over to come to Canada. When they got here they lived in a dugout (hole in the ground) covered over with a log roof with another family for a couple of years until they could build their own house. She was the oldest daughter in a family with 12 kids. She got married at 18 to a widower 10 years older than her whose wife was killed in a buggy accident leaving a baby daughter. My grandfather had a ruptured appendix a couple of years later so they had to move 60 miles away and work for a large farmer milking cows and baking bread for two years to pay the medical bills. During the 1930s they didn’t notice much difference other than that there were more people leaving their farms in the south and moving north. They were so dirt poor that they couldn’t get any poorer so it didn’t matter. They kept the old house for a while, it was 16X20 feet and they had 4 kids.
She had scars from smallpox, survived scarlet fever and survived the 1918 pandemic. My grandfather survived rheumatic fever, he dropped down to 87 pounds and my grandmother said she would pray every night that he would die so that he wouldn’t have to suffer so much. He got better because he was insanely tough, like one of those Marvel Universe guys.
She was always happy (I have never seen her in a bad mood) and very grateful for all that she had. She never complained, ever. I treasure those summers and try to be like her as much as I can. People complaining about things drives me crazy. Nobody has anything to complain about in Canada. (I guess I should stop complaining about people complaining but I think that is the only thing that somebody is justified in complaining about)
–
exactly.
stay off the internet and you’ll find folks aren’t really complaining all that much.
“#26 Armpit on 01.25.21 at 4:46 pm
Change of subject?
Question to Blog Dogs (and Garth’s wisdom).
Would you ignore T2 and travel to Hawaii at end of week for 2 months or so?”
Just as long as you’re ready for this added expense when you return home:
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland says the federal government is “looking seriously” at tougher travel measures to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, including mandatory hotel quarantines for air travellers returning from non-essential trips abroad.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/freeland-hints-at-potential-hotel-quarantines-for-returning-travellers-1.5281295
Hope you are correct Garth about The Market mentality being optimistic and continues to be that.
My meagre investments (compared to your Survey’s Richie Riches) up:
17.23% last 6 months.
Mostly balanced ETFs + “selective” Covid oriented stock picks. NO REITs I hate RE. I just do.
My DEATH stock doing well: +22.7% not incl. dividends (I figured the US would be in need of funeral services early in 2020, smug and all as they were back then not realizing Bergamo, IT coming their way and that Covid loves travel)
China ETF doing well: +24.6% (I dislike their Gov but I figured that same Gov would put the screws to the virus being authoritarian and all…and it did, that gain less than 6 mo I think)
And ya, I invested in Novavax knowing it will hopefully save Canada this late Spring, Summer in need of doses, up 5.6% in the past week. Wished I’d bought it last year, then I’d be up +2000%. Oh well, better late than never.
Also Fertilizer stock, hey people ‘gotta eat, up 35.3% past 6 mo.
Stocks doing better than my ETFs but I like they are cheaper to buy and not bad returns so far in past 6 mo though they dragged down my overall average return, still I like them. Diversify with them. Buy the Markets overall.
———————–
So My Liege continue letting us know where The Market is headed you have been bang on when it comes to that AND today will probably be bang on again.
Nicely done Garth and thank you.
#44 Franco “ The virus is coming to an end, effective treatments are popping up and the vaccine is being rolled out, give it a month and things will really look different than they are now”
——-
Yep but not in a good way.
We’re looking at disaster around March if these new variants take hold and become dominant, especially with vaccinations dropping off a cliff.
The press conference in BC this afternoon was pretty grim, and they hinted things aren’t good.
New paper from SFU.
http://www.sfu.ca/magpie/blog/high-transmission-variant-modelling.html
Key points.
Won’t see effects of dominant variation for about 6 weeks. But when we do it will be very fast.
Infection rate doubles every 1-2 weeks (currently 30-40 days).
Suspect we are going to see some very strong measures being taken.
https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/braid-escalating-exodus-of-young-people-a-major-challenge-for-alberta
Snowflakes bolting from the new Detroit.
I’m about 1.5- 2 hours away from the gta, I don’t think it’s far enough. Most of my parents’ respective families got to experience their Nazi neighbour bomb Rotterdam flat. My Mom’s family was 1.5 hours away, my Dad’s, 20 minutes – close enough that their pants would resonate with every exploding bomb. Close enough that wounded returning Allied bombers jettisoning cargo, fuel, and sometimes bombs ended up destroying nearby buildings. They got to enjoy Nazi occupation as well. I got to hear stories about house to house Nazi inspections, and trying to teach the youngest kids to keep quiet about the few pigs they were hiding in the hay mound. They all left Holland in ‘51-52 .
It was either Australia or Canada, both sides chose Canada, and here I am today. Both sides of the family scratched out a living via farming. Nothing glamorous I can assure you.
Listening to stories of my Parents upbringing makes me laugh out loud at the kiddies today questioning if previous generations had it so tough as they do. I’m literally rolling on the floor. My Mom’s family lived in an 600 sf clapboard crap shack in the middle of a cornfield after arriving in Canada. No hydro, no furnace, no telephone, no TV. 10 people jammed in there, and in the wintertime, they all woke up with frost on their blankets. They all did backbreaking farm labour until they could afford to get a farm of their own.
In a few days in 1952, the Great London Smog killed 4000+ people. There was no panic, and politicians had to be prodded hard to take any action at all. The 1962 smog killed off about 700 more. In the later years before the Clean Air Act (1968) there were still some unbelievable winter fogs in London. They were great fun. I remember mornings when you could barely make out who was standing at arm’s length in the playground.
Today’s kids are taught from an early age to be fearful of the outside world, and to put their faith in bureaucrats. My youngest (grade 8) spent a whole morning at school today watching videos on that well-known Canadian “hero” so-called), Dr Bonny Henry. At her former elementary school, there were often school-wide lockdowns. One happened when a kitten was found to have wandered on the playground. The other after a KG child reported seeing a “baby bear” go into a bush (later assumed to be a dog).
#47 Howard on 01.25.21 at 5:45 pm
Huh? Debt doesn’t matter now, Garth? Have the MMT people gotten to you?
Here’s what one can be afraid of.
There will no default. But, here’s how it can unfold :
– Continued deficit spending requires continued bond issuance.
– Nobody is interested in buying our garbage notes. So, Uncle Tiff has to step in and monetize the bonds.
– Do this long enough and you’ve nationalized the bond market, killed the CAD, decreased the purchasing power and standard of living of wage earners which leads to increased social unrest.
– Government must then step in with UBI to calm the impoverished masses….which requires more deficit spending, more bond issuance, and more CAD devaluation
– Rinse and repeat until the system implodes.
Greater chance of an asteroid strike. – Garth
—————————————–
I see.
Well then why all the blog posts criticizing Trudeau’s debt if it will never matter regardless of how large it grows?
It matters. Your scenario is fiction. – Garth
Man’s golden age. The nostalgia of 4th millennium BC.
https://www.sacred-texts.com/ane/sum/sum00.htm
Sure hope you right GARTH…..
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/coronavirus-is-going-to-stay-with-us-forever-moderna-ceo-224622557.html
“Tech companies are making money (BlackBerry and GameStop are the new darlings, and recently it was DoorDash and Airbnb IPOs) but so are the boring old ‘value’ companies that make cars and bum wad. The point is simple. Investors are pumped. ”
Hello Garth.
GameStop is NOT a darling of the market. It is the wedge that is being driven in a ridiculous social media scheme on Reddit’s r/Wallstreetbets to “screw over” the establishment… and by that they mean the hedge funds that have shorted GME over 100%. One fortunate investor was able to pay off his student load today as a result. However one hedge fund, Melvin Capital, was bailed out over $2.7B by other funds looking to preserve their exposure today, as a result. That subreddit has gone from 1.6 million subscribers to over 2.2M in one week. Who are they? Young, broke, disheartened youth going all-in YOLO with their student-loan backed RobinHood accounts on GME (and BB, by the way). All in attempt to get a foot up, and throw the middle finger at Old Money. They will all be down to zero in a week perhaps a month, but they are so naive they don’t understand this.
So investors are pumped. Perhaps, but it seems some snowflakes are pumped for a different reason. I wish they would read your blog instead.
Breaking… our UN junta ruling Ontaiowe ordered it remain shut down anew. What is it 2 weeks this time? 28 days?
Some people still think this is about our health??
Locked in our homes while the New World Order is rolled out. We are on year 1 of 10 years total rollout.
But hey this is nonsense – from November after the first 2 shutdowns:
““#74 Alphonse Kehaulic on 11.25.20 at 7:40 pm
28 days lockdown. Symbolism. Two 8s = 88 = double infinity. In other words: Endless, in perpetuity, no timeouts for your lockdowns. Put it to you this way: From now on there will never be a time of no lockdowns.
28 Days Later was a movie about a pandemic. Just a coincidence I’m sure.””
………….
I know I know it was debunked this “crazy leaked plan”.
But Damn son. Fool me once.
Fair comment on this weblog entry
https://www.greaterfool.ca/2020/10/15/virus-porn-2/
– Complete and total secondary lock down (much stricter than the first and second rolling phase restrictions). Expected by end of December 2020 – early January 2021
– Reform and expansion of the unemployment program to be transitioned into the universal basic income program. Expected by Q1 2021.
– Projected COVID-19 mutation and/or co-infection with secondary virus (referred to as COVID-21) leading to a third wave with much higher mortality rate and higher rate of infection. Expected by February 2021.
– Enhanced lock down restrictions (referred to as Third Lock Down) will be implemented. Full travel restrictions will be imposed (including inter-province and inter-city). Expected Q2 2021.
– Transitioning of individuals into the universal basic income program. Expected mid Q2 2021.
#69 Nonplused on 01.25.21 at 7:19 pm
PS in my next missive I will discuss why “unrealized capital gains taxes” are really just “wealth taxes” and thus also don’t work. But I will save that for tomorrow.
—————
No, please post your dismissive before tonight’s cutoff.
Can’t wait till morning.
#65 Foggy on 01.25.21 at 7:11 pm
I’m no doomsayers, but when does historic debt at every level – household, city, province, country – matter?
————————————-
In my opinion, it will matter when the currency is so thoroughly devalued that the decrease in standard of living for ordinary people leads to massive social unrest.
You see, you cannot have excessive currency devaluation (and the inequality it breeds) AND democracy in the same country. Doesn’t work that way. These conditions are only sustainable under authoritarian regimes. Betting that current conditions in Canada persist is betting that Canada does away with the democratic experiment and becomes Venezuela North.
@#72 Howard
“Well then why all the blog posts criticizing Trudeau’s debt if it will never matter regardless of how large it grows?”
+++
Because, with a Trillion dollar debt ( and rising by one billion a week) the only way to keep the dollar above a peso is with higher and higher and higher…..taxes.
I need another beer.
I haven’t posted in a while so I thought I’d give an update.
I’m fine. I’m just mortified. I’m watching the destruction of the U.S.A.
I’m watching the U.S.A.’s abandonment of:
The Constitution
The Rule of Law
Freedom of Speech
and
Freedom of Assembly
…and the possible transitioning to a one-party state if the Democratic Party makes their planned changes.
I probably won’t write again for a long while because I’m still mortified.
#48 Faron on 01.25.21 at 5:48 pm
I looked it up and yes you’re right, the equal weights have indeed caught up to the cap weighted indices. I guess it makes sense given the spike in commodities and financials at the end of 2020.
I question your characterization of Facebook, for example, as a “fantastic company” for investment purposes at $700B market cap. Nor do I think Apple deserves a 75% premium over its Feb 2020 high (has it sold 75% more phones in the past year?). But then, I’m a value guy in the midst of a bubbly blowoff top. A Nasdaq ETF provides sufficient exposure to the cult companies for me.
#6 Tron Light
The Abuser? Go look at what’s happening to the masses in much of the third world if you want to see abusive government actions. I’d hardly call extending benefits to the general population or trying to rectify a sanitary crisis situation for the sake of the public good “abusive.”
WTF is wrong with you, too many Hollywood movies? An abusive government would have let the disease rip and rampage until a bunch of more deadly and contagious variants could surface and create even more suffering, death and economic destruction.
It would have let the herd go hungry and homeless in the process with impunity, rather than flooding the markets with stimulus in preparation for a rebound.
Oh, and as for all the mental problems… they were well rooted in society before anyone had ever heard word of COVID. We aren’t exactly chained in cells now are we? I’m in one the hardest hit provinces, but we can still walk, run, bike, ski, skate, swim and drive. Call for take-out with the punch of a few buttons. Order line. Date online in we’re that desperate. Just no partying until the wee morning hours or unrestricted international travel. Not exactly Vietnam or WWI or II now is it?
As for travel, just 100 years ago most Canadians couldn’t afford to travel within Canada let alone abroad. And just a few hundred years before that only the tride and true explorers were able to set sail for new horizons… but of course htey did so in the most extreme circumstances, battling disease, hunger, storms and other attacks and catastrophes in the process. Now every idiot with a credit card thinks they’re friggin’ Columbus.
My advice: make some popcorn, pour yourself an unrationed rye, and find something to watch on Netflix or Amazon Prime that won’t stir up and ignite your crazy.
Then, once you’ve calmed down, tap your inner Zen to find gratitude and appreciation in the fact that you are still healthy and alive. Many others haven’t been so lucky.
Still feeling cumbersome and useless? Why not think of a few ways that you could help someone else less fortunate in your community? Donate some of your time, talents or other resources to the cause. You might even discover your own true worth. No joke, much of our “mental illness” is just self-depravation owing to rabid individualism.
@#73 mark
“The nostalgia of 4th millennium BC.
https://www.sacred-texts.com/ane/sum/sum00.htm
++++
I didnt realize they had peyote in Sumeria
@#95 Lurker
“I probably won’t write again for a long while because I’m still mortified.”
++++
We’re going to hold you to that.
Socks
1st place on largest debt addition in this crisis of any developed country.
Last place on VAX, Canada kicked to the curb.
What a leader.
Don’t worry I emailed him today (can’t repeat what I called him.)
FYI Worse than a worm.
#26
Change of subject?
Question to Blog Dogs (and Garth’s wisdom).
Would you ignore T2 and travel to Hawaii at end of week for 2 months or so?
Been in Oahu since Dec2…I’ll take the sailboat home in June as I don’t want to fly & have to quarantine in a roach motel upon arrival.
In researching the latest dance moves on TikTok (did you realize Michael Jackson is back?) over the weekend, a poignant vid popped up. A twentysomething girl stared into her iPhone and asked wrinklies, paleos and half-dead Boomers to share their stories about bygone hard times.
Here’s a story. It was the 60′s, Woodbridge was still farms. One summer job was in the flooring business. One contract was to pour a floor at Mary Miles Meat Packing Plant. The crew was Italian. We had mostly finished the floor when somebody noticed a flaw in the concrete. The boss said to ignore it. Without saying a word, one of the workers waded through the freshly poured concrete, repaired the flaw and troweled his way back.
The floor was poured. The city was built. We’re living in it. The city is a meta-physical thing. You may be living in London Ontario or Lunenburg Nova Scotia. You’re still living in the city. So what are we doing in the city? We’re waiting. Covid is just an interlude. There’s something more. Me, I pray the Rosary. No subscription fee.
#61 Linda on 01.25.21 at 6:45 pm
…Just smile & anticipate the day when M.R. gets called ‘Sir’ or ‘Ma’am’ by a younger person. It will come, unless M.R. gets run over by a Boomer:)
—— –
M.R., depending on age, might only be a few years away. I still remember the day of reckoning for me. I was shopping for a pair of new shoes. The teen aged young lady who was helping me out said “…well, my Dad likes these…” I probably wasn’t much past 40…
#96 Howard on 01.25.21 at 8:36 pm
#48 Faron on 01.25.21 at 5:48 pm
Okay, I was a little exuberant about FAANG, but they are essential media companies making a killing selling ads and folks’ data. I don’t like them and also favor value, but they represent more solid business than many of the outright fraudulent names that have exploded this year. My bets would be on Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Apple in that order were I to pick. Just about anything done on computers roday puts money in their pockets.
#22: pierre
wow, i may vote for this guy..
wonder what his views on everything else is: environment, defense, healthcare, etc.
but i can see myself voting for him.
#64 George S…
She was always happy (I have never seen her in a bad mood) and very grateful for all that she had. She never complained, ever.
———
Your grandmother understand what does it mean – life! I respect people like she. People complaining b’s they never think about what they really have and what they really need.
They want to have more…more and more. Non stop …. and finally lost his life for nothing.
There have only been 4 impeachment trials in US history.
Trump holds the record with 2.
This will surely cement his place in the history books.
I hope Garth will have some comments regarding the type of questions from the Budget 2021 questionnaire from Chrystia et al.
https://letstalkbudget2021.ca/
#97 Cici on 01.25.21 at 8:36 pm
Thank you for taking the time to put that out there.
I really couldn’t disagree with anything you wrote.
#39 Faron on 01.25.21 at 5:16 pm
#16 TurnerNation on
Yup. I also like
“A WeightLoss book written by Physicists would be 1 sentence long:”Consume calories at a lower rate than your body burns them” Neil deGrasse Tyson.
That’s literally all the change I made after hitting a Covid 240 and in a few months was back down to 210 which at 6’3″ is fine. No one expects a 6-pack at 40… at least that’s what the wife assured me…
#75 Faron on 01.25.21 at 7:37 pm
You could just admit that you were clueless about the BB retail pump and discounted the upside risk. And just got hella lucky. We all know you scored big. Just own it man.
————
Sure, you bet, lucky as she goes… again.
God does seem inordinately fond of us beetles.
@#108 Barb
https://letstalkbudget2021.ca/
Excellent link Barb.
Quite an eyeopener as to the Liberal agenda( endless questions on giving money for endless social awareness programs) in the coming budget.
I encourage everyone to fill it out.
“…opening up positions for those who understand employers want to see, touch and breath on their employees..”
#metoo
#97 Cici on 01.25.21 at 8:36 pm
I see I struck a nerve. That was a nice rant I must admit but I also must say that the rant smacks of a mental health crisis you are having but are not aware of and are, therefore, projecting it on me. Part of it seems to be anger issues. Did this start for you before Covid as well?
I do like rye but my drink of choice is bourbon.
“The 45th president lost his creds, any respect that remained, his public voice plus his sponsors and his brand. A huge disruptive force is gone.”
——-
Not so fast! The Fat Lady is not even behind the curtains yet!
Trump is far from ceasing to be a disruptive force. I’d like to know post Jan. 6, how many of his 74 million supporters would still vote for him now? I’m guessing 70 million! It doesn’t look like the Senate will vote “guilty” and hence cannot vote for banning him from ever running for office again. Therefore, he will likely split the Republican Party and all but destroy the Democratic Republic with an uncivil war, if he can get his supporters to bankroll him. They will be energized after his second victory over the “greatest witch-hunt in American history!”
Regardless of what happens, Trump is still going to be a major disruptive force. The only hope is either criminally indicting him for Jan. 6, and/or NY state nails him for his financial corruptions. If so, I’m predicting he will be behind bars in time for the 2024 election.
It is the only way to finally get the Fat Lady to sing!
#92 Ponzius Pilatus on 01.25.21 at 8:18 pm
#69 Nonplused on 01.25.21 at 7:19 pm
PS in my next missive I will discuss why “unrealized capital gains taxes” are really just “wealth taxes” and thus also don’t work. But I will save that for tomorrow.
—————
No, please post your dismissive before tonight’s cutoff.
Can’t wait till morning.
————————————
I actually meant that as a bit of a joke. It should be inherently obvious why “unrealized capital gains taxes” don’t work, and wasn’t really planning to talk about it tomorrow. But the idea does come up, so it may be necessary.
To put the concept in as few words as possible; an “unrealized capital gain” is not money. A “realized capital gain” is. You can’t pay taxes without money. And the government would get no more money either way, all they would do is move the collection of the capital gains tax forward, assuming there was some way for the person to get the money to pay the tax without moving the gain from the “unrealized” column to the “realized” column (i.e. selling).
Well, damn. Now I have nothing to talk about tomorrow. I am sure I will think of something.
I just sold a few nasdaq positions today after about 100% gains..started felling a bit nervous.. hope to get back in if we see a 20-30% correction, thinking of trimming some s&p as well…
Genius (I mean Jackson). Your blog today was pretty good too, Garth.
Love the optimistic outlook but I see dark clouds on the horizon.
The markets have been on steroids due to stimulus and records of newby dollars via Robinhood trading platform are chasing trends.
A sizable correction is inevitable at this point, in my opinion. Unless it’s different this time and the newbies get to keep their (paper) profits.
Yes, we do live in uniquely perilous times never seen before by humans
Human-cased climate chance coupled with ecosystem degradation are a steamroller. In this context, Covid is an unfortunate a side effect to ecosystem destruction, but a side show what has already started and we are nearing the point of no return on the climate. Once we cross a a threshold of somewhere between 350 and 550 ppm of CO2 and pass a 2C temp increase threshold, nonlinear feedback loops start to kick in in earnest, with a very strong likelihood of shunting the climate into a phase change and a dreaded ‘hot house earth’ scenario.
In other worlds we leave the stable climate pattern of the past 10,000 years in which we invented agriculture and created civilizations, and into something not seen on Earth since before humans evolved.
There’s slim chance that this current growth economy [which is a big part of the problem] is going to survive, nor will many current political and social structures. Hundreds of millions to billions will be displaced, millions will die, cities sunk, ecosystems vanish.
How long do we have? A lot less time than most people think. We’ve already baked in 3-4C warming in the next eight decades if we continue with business as usual, which is double what is safe.
So according to the IPCC 1.5 Degree Special Report we now have less than a decade to alter the trajectory or the curve gets too steep, and right now we aren’t even remotely on track. Worse yet, people and governments just want to ‘get back to normal’.
So yes, the twenty-somethings and children of today are facing a crappy present and a catastrophic future. And yes, this is unique.
https://www.nature.com/articles/461472a
Blackberry doesn’t know why stock surged…
#108 Barb on 01.25.21 at 9:25 pm
I hope Garth will have some comments regarding the type of questions from the Budget 2021 questionnaire from Chrystia et al.
https://letstalkbudget2021.ca/
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Right in the first sentence, there’s the ‘Build Back Better’ line again. Gee, still riding Biden’s coattails, even after they cancelled Keystone XL, and a ‘Buy American’ executive order.
Where’s the URGENT meeting with the Biden administration to get Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig back home? Either Justin and Chrystia keep forgetting, or they just don’t care. It’s ultimatum time – Drop the charges against Meng Wanzhou, or face massive tariffs.
C’mon Chrystia! We’ve nothing to lose now! Be Swift and Strong!
#22 Adc
…………………….
PP for Prime Minister (Conservative) – on Jan.25th 2021… (just covered some of the stressor points i have been going over and over on here in the past year).
His speech on debt is well focused…needs to delve deeper into detail with it.
My daughters grew to be better skiing than me. I did not like paying to be cold but being the dad I am.
I skied into gully and I am terrible with tree trunks. My daughters were riding above me. They called on me “Don’t give up Dad”. I got out and forgot about hurting them. It was my stupid.
#120 Longterm on 01.26.21 at 1:29 am
There’s slim chance that this current growth economy [which is a big part of the problem] is going to survive, nor will many current political and social structures. Hundreds of millions to billions will be displaced, millions will die, cities sunk, ecosystems vanish.
————-
Hey, did you know the sun’s going to end? It has been declared. 5 billion years and life on earth as we know it is over.
Also, business idea: Have you considered selling ‘Repent: The End Is Near!’ signs to disseminate your message? The seventies called and apparently stencils are still available.
@#106 Vlad
“They want to have more…more and more.”
+++
Yep.
“I need a new phone!” at $1000 a pop.
“I NEED a new car!” at 6 years financing
“I NEED that new house!” at $1 million (and lifetime of debt).
“What the hell, I’ll finance it.”, Millenial Real-fist , as he enters the bank……
Leave a comment for Chrystia in the comment boxes blogdogs.
(Thanks to Phylis and Barb)
It may be your last chance before the politically correct, massive deficit, modern monetary theory, expensive social experiment becomes the “official ” budget.
https://letstalkbudget2021.ca/
#90
No we will not be broke in a week, unlike a certain hedge fund, take profits when they are there, made some money yesterday and will continue to do so.
#25 Millennial Realist on 01.25.21 at 4:46 pm
“Conclusion, moisters?”
‘Conclusion’? We’re just getting started, LOL!
Actually, it’s the Paleo Boomers who will be coming to a ‘conclusion’ soon. Their demographic influence as well as, sadly, their lives, will mostly be over within the next decade or less, but please hang around as long as possible so we can make fun of you!
What will change, dramatically, is the economic trickle down wealth disparity mess that Boomer Cons have created, as well as the blindsighted environmental disaster that has been bestowed upon younger generations.
Boomers, be part of the change.
Or be run over by it. (And forgotten. Or remembered only with regret)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
When MR speaks, I’m reminded of the time a couple years ago when a pierced and red Mohawk haired dude hung out of a car and yelled and cursed at me while I was walking down the street in Van.
I laughed at him. It was shocking when his grandfather did it in the early 70’s . Now it’s just tacky. MR needs to find his own voice rather than just re-living the teen angst of the ’70’s.
You want to get ahead? Get up. Dress up. Show up. Waiting for someone to die so that you can get ahead is a loser strategy. Someone else will eat your lunch while you’re whining.
DELETED
#120 Longterm.
Reading your post was a depressing way to start the day. :(
#39
Extreme stances on diet are the get-rich-quick of the health/weight loss world. It’s quite simple:
“Eat food, not too much, mostly plants” — Michael Pollan
If you eat moderate amounts of real food and do so in social settings and with a sense of joy, you will be healthier.
——————————————————————-
Faron,
That is the most intelligent thing that you have ever said on this blog. I have a new found respect for you. Consider me part of the Faron Fan Club.
All things in moderation. I can’t stand food and diet nazis.
“The mark of a moderate man
is freedom from his own ideas.
Tolerant like the sky,
all-pervading like sunlight,
firm like a mountain,
supple like a tree in the wind,
he has no destination in view
and makes use of anything
life happens to bring his way.”
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
#64 George S.
She was always happy (I have never seen her in a bad mood) and very grateful for all that she had. She never complained, ever.
——————————————————————–
Excellent reminder to all the whining snowflakes out there.
I think that the flood of extraneous “information” available to so many untrained brains adds to the unhappiness of so many young people today. They are hopelessly tapped into the artificial world of misinformation and distorted reality otherwise known as social media. They can’t even begin to understand how good they have it because they are mired in the toxic cesspool of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tik Tok, Snap Chat, Reality TV, and whatever other tripe that feeds their collective ignorance, hatred, jealousy, self-loathing, fear, envy, resentment, inferiority, alcoholism, lack of self esteem, laziness, drug addiction, paranoia, groupthink, and self imposed misery.
Regardless of these so called “hard times” (hah!), young Canadians have no excuse not to be happy. Living in a country where the goal of the government is to hand free money to them if they are jobless is a pretty advantageous place to start. There are no marauding tribal gangs breaking into homes en masse killing or kidnapping them. We are not in a war zone. The air is fresh. Food is plentiful. Natural disasters are virtually non-existent. There are plenty of people you can meet and make friends with. This virus is temporary. The land throughout the country is beautiful. Opportunities abound.
Start a hobby. Read books. Exercise. Cook. Listen to music. Educate yourself. Grow a garden. Take a walk in the woods. Have a coffee. Watch endless great movies (not the frivolous garbage that’s mostly produced today). Watch interesting documentaries. Learn a trade. Knit. Sew. Bake. Build. Craft. Embrace simplicity. Consume less. Hike. Ski. Snowshoe. Adopt a dog. Or a cat. Volunteer. Find someone to help. Ride a bicycle. Swim. Run. Sing. Stop comparing yourself to others. Paint. Keep a journal. Do Yoga. Meditate. Listen to intelligent podcasts. Improve your skills continually. Chop firewood. Barbecue. Help others but take care of your self. Stop listening to the “news”. Quit social media. Learn to play an instrument.
There is a lot you can do besides dwelling on the troubles in the world and complaining about how bad you have it. Focus. Do your best to earn enough to take care of yourself and stop being influenced by the success or failure of others, and concentrate on fixing your own situation, day in, day out.
“Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today.” – Jordan Peterson
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”
― G. Michael Hopf, Those Who Remain
Improve yourself.
Every answer in the budget questionair:
checked “Other”
Please explain box
“Get rid of Trudeau”
That should helpfix the economy!
There has always been an historical relationship between annual increases in money supply and growth of nominal GDP. Nominal GDP growth has two components: actual economic growth and inflation. Inflation dictates the policies related to interest rates, not the other way around.
An increase in money supply always results in some inflation while decease in money supply and an increase in interest rates slows down economic growth and the rate of inflation.
The lag between a 30% increase in money supply in 2020 and increases in the prices of most commodities including oil is coming to an end. Low interest rates may have reduced the cost of carrying debt attached to many purchases but the prices of most goods and services are increasing to reflect the substantial increases in money supply in 2020 and 2021.
When a Central bank decides to monetize hundreds of billions of dollars of Government debt they realize that a measure of inflation is bound to follow.
My concern is that the metrics associated with a substantial increase in money supply would indicate that inflation will contribute a minimum of 3.0% to GDP growth in 2021 and a minimum of 4.0% in 2022.
Inflation has an inexorable relationship with money supply and I see little evidence that the Bank of Canada fully understands the impact that monetizing as much as $550 billion of debt might have on inflation in 2021, 2022 and 2023.
The Federal Reserve in the US has already indicated that inflation could exceed their 2.0% ceiling in 2021. If inflation approaches 3.0% by 2022 I would anticipate
a reduction in money supply or an increase in interest rates.
@#134 joblo
I essentially did the same with the exception .
I wrote ” Balance the budget” in the comment section.
I couldn’t care less if a poo-flinging monkey was in charge.
Just as long as the budget is …..balanced.
#136 crowdedelevatorfartz on 01.26.21 at 11:10 am On the theme of balance, I suggested they take a billion from the cbc budget and put it towards mental health programs. Less talk, more action.
#132 Dharma Bum on 01.26.21 at 9:29 am
Consider me part of the Faron Fan Club.
—
Welcome! On Wednesdays we jab ice picks under our fingernails and talk about taxes. Fridays we soak our feet in 4 degrees C water for two hours. Our beds are gravel and underwear the itchiest of wool. I think you’ll enjoy it!
Seriously though — my over-arching take on diets and suchlike is that the human mind is often an inadvertent tool for creating the physical sensations that we experience. If one worries about food, lo and behold one will have an aching stomach. If one worries about sleeping, insomnia comes. Cortisol is a powerful drug.
That’s not to say that eating crap is a good thing or that eating a constant stream of crap wont lead to poor health. But I cringe hard at fad diets. Victoria is full of people on them and they are constantly worrying about eating this and not that and more of the other, yet their “bloatedness” and stomach pain never goes away.
But maybe I tell myself this because I really enjoy a good hot dog and I’ll be damned if I live a life in which I “can’t” have one.
Hey Garth,
I think you are confused with your generations here… millenails are nearly 40 years old now. Many were indeed alive (and 20 years old) when 9/11 happened.
But did they notice? – Garth
Anyone else wondering if Blackberry might be the next Shopify? This company has a real history of doing things well, despite some bumps the last decade.
I will not be surprised to see that stock priced anywhere from $500 to $1000 in the next couple years. Things are just a little crazy in tech markets these days and BB seems very well positioned.
If Shopify can do it, why not a company like BB with a solid history.
Canadian home prices are on average more than 40% higher than US, even after adjusting for the dollar.
https://torontostoreys.com/canada-average-home-prices-40-percent-over-usa-bmo/
#64. George S.
Thanks.
Is it true that hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men and weak men create hard times? If so, and judging by our entitled and complaing youth, we are in for some very hard times.
#137 Phylis on 01.26.21 at 11:50 am
#136 crowdedelevatorfartz on 01.26.21 at 11:10 am On the theme of balance, I suggested they take a billion from the cbc budget and put it towards mental health programs. Less talk, more action.
—
Yeah, it would be awesome if the Canadian media landscape looked more like the US’s. That’s been working out really well down there. So much truthiness.
When Chrystia Freeland, who has no financial training or experience,
She has been studying and writing books on finance for decades.
As stated. No training or experience. People who write books about hockey are not hockey players. – Garth
#134 joblo on 01.26.21 at 10:27 am
Every answer in the budget questionair:
checked “Other”
Please explain box
“Get rid of Trudeau”
That should helpfix the economy!
____
Nice job!
The algorithm will probably toss my questionnaire out. Throughout that whole thing, there were plenty of questions asked that would allow them to pinpoint me as: Straight, Canadian, Caucasian, Male, not poor, not young.
Definitely not the demographic whose opinion the Libs care too much about.
“Hey snowflakes…”
IS RIGHT!
SNOW EMERGENCY IN THE GTA!
5-10 cm expected in the next 24 hours!
Oh the Humanity!
CALL IN THE ARMY!
TORONTURDS MATTER!
(Way more than the rest of you)
Garth, evacuate Lunenburg asap, and bring your shovel. This is an ORDER.
GTAHoles are IMPORTANT! THEY ARE CANADA!
Everyone must come to Toronthole IMMEDIATELY and OBEY that city’s directives to clean off their sidewalks and $1 Million, 350 Sq Ft glass condo balconies!
Drop whatever you are doing.
Pick up a shovel.
Drive to the GTA carefully avoiding all the local roadway psychopaths.
NOW!
Long Term bullish. There are lot of opportunities.
#141 Samuel on 01.26.21 at 12:44 pm
Canadian home prices are on average more than 40% higher than US, even after adjusting for the dollar.
https://torontostoreys.com/canada-average-home-prices-40-percent-over-usa-bmo/
____
Sometimes I think the quickest way to bring house prices down to normal in Canadian areas affected by hormonal blindness, is to just let ’em shoot to the Moon. The faster and harder, the better.
If the RE market is supported at the bottom by new home buyers – let those homes rise to stupid, ridiculous levels. Like 2-3 Million for a soggy 1940’s roach farm complete with aluminum siding, crumbling chimney, and single pane windows. That should be enough to trigger gag reflexes in 99%+ of prospective buyers. The disgust would cut deep prompting folks to move out of said areas, and drastically cutting the pool of buyers interested in paying a King’s ransom for an oversized dog house.
Something like this would have multiple upsides too, beyond just crashing house prices. And a few downsides too…
#143 R on 01.26.21 at 1:01 pm
Is it true that hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men and weak men create hard times? If so, and judging by our entitled and complaing youth, we are in for some very hard times.
—
Luckily for us, men are only 1/2 the picture. Also luckily for us, that’s just trumpish tripe. Red meat for the bois. Rawrrrr.
I am greatly enjoying the derivative drama playing out on one small, insignificant stock. This could make a good movie. Maybe call it ‘The Big Squeeze’.
Fascinating… if that type of thing interests you.
#146 IHCTD9
“Throughout that whole thing, there were plenty of questions asked that would allow them to pinpoint me as: Straight, Canadian, Caucasian, Male, not poor, not young.
Definitely not the demographic whose opinion the Libs care too much about.”
——————————————
Exactly! Me too.
Except not male.