August 4, 2021 | The Choice

In October of 2019 we had no idea what was coming.

An election had been called. The economy was decent. Markets were robust. Nobody had ever heard of Covid and few knew where Wuhan was. The government that year was taking heat for spending $19 billion more than it took in. And the red-meat-eaters who lumber into this pathetic site every day voted 51% for Andrew Scheer’s Tories, 22% for T2 and 9% for nobody.

That month the Libs went from majority rule to minority, appointed a ‘Minister of Middle Class Prosperity’ and we all settled back to watch the Trump show as America voted. Then over the next 19 months the entire world changed. Millions died in a global pandemic. Entire economies shut down. Governments spent $20 trillion trying to keep nations alive. Markets gyrated. Downtowns emptied. Millions left their workplaces. Public debt exploded. Canada’s deficit careened higher to over $350 billion. Interest rates crashed. There was urban flight. Trump lost but refused to admit it. The US Capitol came under public insurrection. Real estate prices exploded globally and nowhere more than in Canada. Social unrest bubbled higher with quarantines and lockdowns. Miracle medicines were developed and mass inoculations happened. The virus mutated. And here we are. Now you get to vote again. To pass judgment.

Some believe Covid changed everything. It didn’t. But it changed enough that returning to normal will be a longer process than anyone could have imagined months ago. Leaders now have to deal with unbelievable revenue shortfalls and a public grown used to subsidies, handouts and pandemic benefits. Central banks have to wean everyone off record-low interest rates, 2% mortgages and their artificial bond yield suppression. Employers have to find ways of goosing productivity and enticing workers back after a dubious experiment in remote employment. And now few people without real estate can afford any.

The winners?

Unearned pandemic real estate equity (66% of our poll respondents own). Financial markets looking to the inevitable reopening trade after the big crash in March of 2020 have also outperformed. And, likely, Justin Trudeau wins. Despite what the knuckle-draggers and deficit hawks on this blog want.

So over four thousand people voted in our poll yesterday. The Cons ‘won’ by a landslide and “None of the Above” came in third, after the guy who will probably get his majority. Other notable results: the deficit is your big worry (proud of you); the greatest number of voters are 30 to 49; two-thirds make between $100,00 and $300,000 a year; you diss more personal taxes but support a higher sales tax to attack the deficit; and weird Max Bernier edges out Jagmeet in the popularity contest. More evidence that our little society here has become unhinged from mainstream Canada.

No surprise there.

Garth Turner August 4th, 2021

Posted In: The Greater Fool

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