ALWAYS CONSULT YOUR INVESTMENT PROFESSIONAL BEFORE MAKING ANY INVESTMENT DECISION
April 23, 2019 | Canada Maxed Out
A decade of ultra-low interest rates and lax lending enabled Canadians to borrow and spend their way into a state of extreme financial fragility. Today Canadian households are world leaders in terms of average household debt that is 180% of average disposable income (second only to Australians at 200%), and a household saving rate that […]
April 22, 2019 | Australian Housing Bust Continues
This clip offers a good update on issues affecting the Australian property market, households and the economy overall. There are many parallels to Canada as well. When it comes to housing bubbles, the bigger the bubble, the bigger the pop. That’s what Australia is probably experiencing at the moment — A large deflation that isn’t […]
April 20, 2019 | 60 Minutes Australia Looks at the Recycling Lie
Recycling non-biodegradable plastics into other non-biodegradable plastics is a stop-gap measure. The solution requires us to greatly reduce the use of plastics and require that the ones needed be made out of biodegradable materials. Time to speak up and act. We consumers accepting this packaging are enabling its demand. There is no doubt Australia is […]
April 18, 2019 | The Future of Transportation is Quiet, Emission Free, Cheap to Run
This presentation at WORLD MINDS MOBILITY is on the world’s first electronic, autonomous personal aircraft, the prototype is already here. Here is a direct video link.
April 17, 2019 | Boom-Bust Cycles Have Increased Savings Deficits
Extreme monetary accommodation and share buybacks have extended the last three economic expansion cycles since 1991, but magnified savings and investment deficits through the economy at the same time. For one important example see WSJ: Long Bull Market has failed to fix Public Pensions. Pension liabilities (in yellow below) have compounded faster than assets (in blue) […]
April 16, 2019 | Debt-Fueled Property Bubble Deflating in Stockholm Too
Low-interest rates, lax-lending and speculative fever, drove a boom in property demand, size and opulence over the past decade in most of the world’s major cities. Now home prices are unaffordable for most and debt is maxed out everywhere, just as aging owners are looking to cash out and lower expenditures en masse. The predictable […]
April 15, 2019 | Canadian Households at Point of Hard Return
At 1.1%, the Canadian savings rate is today near all-time lows, while Canadian debt is at all-time highs, and unemployment is set to move higher. Years of reckless financial policies have driven Canada to the point of hard return. This one is gonna hurt. As observed by Canadian consumer credit expert Scott Terrio this morning: No […]
April 13, 2019 | Marketplace Looks at Our Plastic Plague and Action Needed
As always, intolerance from consumers is a critical part of driving change. This requires thinking people to actively seek alternate products and producers that minimize plastic packaging, as well as bringing our own containers and bags to stores and leaving plastic packaging piled up at the checkout where necessary. When it happens enough, store managers […]
April 12, 2019 | Big Banks Still Reaping Profits From ‘Astounding’ Legal Violations
Better Markets (BM) describes itself as a “non-profit, non-partisan, and independent organization founded in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis to promote the public interest in the financial markets, support the financial reform of Wall Street and make our financial system work for all Americans again”. Eleven years in, BM continues to catalogue ongoing […]
April 11, 2019 | ‘The Big Short’ Eisman Betting on Losses in Canadian Bank Shares
Canadian financial shares make up 38% of the market cap of dividend-paying stocks in the broader TSX composite which most Canadian equity funds, managers and pensions are benchmarking. Lower credit-cycle exposure in the last two bear markets resulted in 40% and 55% losses (2000-02 and 2008-09) for Canadian bank shares, and the overall Canadian market […]
April 10, 2019 | Crime Proceeds Helped Inflate Canada’s Property Prices and Debt
About those world-famous-sky-high Canadian home prices that have helped drive record debt enslavement for Canadian households that will cost our economy for years to come…there’s an even darker side to some of the price-indiscriminant buying–money laundering proceeds of crime. That’s right, cash from the debilitating opioid epidemic and other crime rings can be directly traced […]
April 9, 2019 | Why The Economy Is Not Working For Most
Financialization, share buybacks, the shareholder primacy mindset, decades of tax cuts and government bailouts for ‘too big to fail’ companies, have all worked to socialize costs and subsidize a tiny fraction of the population at the expense of the rest. Systems that don’t self-correct end up imploding one way or another. Prior eras of extreme […]
April 8, 2019 | ‘Piggybank Empty’ for Tapped Out Canadian homeowners
Canadian insolvencies are on the rise as their debt comes home to roost. For more on this and why the piggybank is empty for some Canadians looking to borrow against their home, BNN Bloomberg spoke with Keith Emery, operations director at Credit Canada. Here is a direct video link. Meanwhile, a Stats Can report this week […]
April 6, 2019 | The Current Looks at the Cost of Rampant Money Laundering in Canada
Not only are drug traffickers and other criminals enabled, and needed tax revenues avoided, but investigators confirm that money laundering flows have been a significant factor driving up the price of real estate and related services (and thus the debt for Canadian households), as well as auto sales and luxury products, far beyond the means […]
April 5, 2019 | Flat is the New Hot in Canadian Home Prices
So far, Toronto sellers have been holding and hoping that 2017 prices will bounce back, but with clamp downs on money laundering and foreign inflows, the large inventory of properties priced over $2m are less in demand. And with the majority of baby boomers over-housed, undersaved and looking to downsize, there is little reason to […]
April 3, 2019 | In Other News: ‘Synchronized Global Growth Has Collapsed’
This morning we learned that US private payrolls posted another disappointing month in March as the job market continued to slow, and Deutsche bank analysts warn that order backlog growth at Caterpillar–maker of earth movers and construction equipment and global-growth bellwether– appears to be turning negative. Negative back-log growth historically precedes a negative earnings revision cycle by […]
April 2, 2019 | Paying For The Crazy Years: Home Prices Leading Economy Down
The largest headwind for Canadian households, lenders and the economy in 2019-20 is the same force that worked as a tailwind in the decade before: real estate. Naturally, the leaders of the boom years–the greater Vancouver and Toronto areas– are now also leading the deflation cycle. And a popular plan to ‘list this spring’ suggests […]
March 29, 2019 | Property Bubble, What Happens Next?
This presentation is good big picture for Australia but also Canada and other bubbling global asset markets. A look at the overseas data and long term Australia house price data, and what it can tell us about the future of the Australian property market. Here is a direct video link.
March 28, 2019 | Make Canadians Solvent Again!!
Canada is attracting international attention for our garish household debt levels. Not a good thing to be famous for! What a difference a decade of lax lending and low rates makes. In 2008, we were one of the countries that looked relatively prudent in our finances. That was then. See: Canadians are Feeling the Debt Burn. […]
March 27, 2019 | Government Bonds Offer a Rare Shelter in Bear Markets
On Friday, markets were spooked when the yield on the US 3-month treasury bill rose to 2.44% while the 10-year treasury yield moved below it to 2.38%. Since investors normally require higher yields for loaning money over longer terms than shorter, this ‘inverted’ yield spread signals a belief that the economy is heading south, and […]
March 26, 2019 | Harbour Air Converting All Seaplanes To Electric
Taking a float plane between Vancouver and Vancouver Island is a very memorable Canadiana experience. Moving about that magnificent backdrop with quiet, non-polluting electric engines, is next level awesome. See: Harbour Air to convert all its seaplanes to electric for the first all-electric airline: “Seaplane operator Harbour Air and electric aviation company MagniX have announced plans […]
March 25, 2019 | Millennials & Debt- No Room to Maneuver
Born between 1981 to 2000, Millennials now average 26 years of age, and comprise about 27% of the North American population. This generation is coming of age in precarious financial circumstances. Their elders have led them poorly and allowed debt-sellers and other predatory business models to prey on the young. For a brighter future, we need […]
March 22, 2019 | Boomers Now ‘Generation Downsize’
I have been pointing out for a few years, that two decades of falling interest rates and rising real estate prices enabled much malinvestment in oversized, expensive-to-maintain homes, that an aging population will want to downsize. This is happening now. When the Greenspan-led, US Fed first turned a blind-eye to ‘irrational exuberance’ in financial markets […]
March 20, 2019 | Transports Leading Stock Market and Economy Lower
Yesterday after the close, the largest global courier delivery service, Federated Express (FedEx), warned of weaker than expected earnings and revenue for the second time in six months. In response, the shares have fallen 37% since January 2018 and 5% today alone. This is not a FedEx only story–management explained that the global economy is slowing all […]
March 19, 2019 | VW Moving from Emissions Fraudster to EV Leader
In 2015 it was revealed that Volkswagen (along with many other manufacturers) had been cheating emissions standards in its diesel vehicles. To date, the fraud has cost the company over 27 billion euros in penalties and fines, as well as the arrest of a couple of top executives. The cost to our air quality, health […]