#55 VanBanker Says: Do you have information/graph of this somewhere? I haven’t heard about Canada buying long-term GOC’s yet, although they have been threatening.

The federal government via CMHC has been buying mortgages from Canadian Banks. Up to $125 Billion so far, though the banks are starting to say that they have had enough. While not a traditional way for a government to “print money”, the goal (and effect, I assume) is the same.

Speaking of that goal, Harper talks about loosening credit markets because banks are too scared to lend. But the banks insist that they are lending. At least to worthy creditors. What has changed is that the unworthy creditors can not longer borrow from NY hedge funds/ subprime lenders. and that is what worries Harper and is what he seems to be trying to recover. Crazy.

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In one of them they say that: “Obviously Jesus Christ was a very humble man because being God, therefore able to do anything, he choose to be born in Bethlehem instead of here..”

An so the circus goes on…

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Yeah, that’s the same for me. But I did live briefly in Toronto as a child, and I remember they had “world-class” and “New York of the North” phrases which I thought were a bit sad. Now it seems to be here, too.

I actually like Vancouver. However, I have a had a weird feeling the it’s grown away from me the last few years. It is starting to feel more like a mall and people are very consumerist (myself included, sometimes). I often think about leaving, but I love my friends and family, so I probably won’t.

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Good post !

IMHO, Vancouver has sold out since the 1980′s. The citizens are propogandized into this World Class mode/belief. Marketed to attract suckers within and attract others globally. Few gain and more lose each day…it’s been a bad dream. People make a City, not the mountains nor the ocean nor the architecture…thats simply hollow window dressing.

I think it’s catching up with us now…this World Class Potemkin Village will show its cracks after the make-up falls off.

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#62 is it swagger or insecurity? Is it real or just part of an advertisement campaign for local consumption that a segment of the vacuous pop has swallowed hook line and sinker. I have been pretty much everywhere and have never heard Vancouver refered to as ‘ World class’ anywhere except here.

Is it just another tag line like ‘staycation, super natural bc, vancouver nuclear free zone? I think it all began somewhere in the bowels of the tourism bc offices and was facillitated by the whoreish local media. It’s all been about playing on the basic fears, ignorance and insecurity of the local population. Even the average house started to heel click and zeig heil during the nazi hey day when all the advertising was directed at that behaviour. Lets face it, a lot of people have been royally sucked by a few jokers who really don’t give a fuck about you anyway.

Vancouver is a pretentious, jealous, violent, subcivil culture devoid on any personality except that which has been created by this agregious and phony ad campaign.

That should be our new tag ” Phony, Pretentious waanabe’s and terminally Soggy”. Oh and then we can switch to ‘west coast lifestyle’ for all 13 sunny days we may get in August.

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#54 VanBanker

M0 M1 M2 M3
Annual Monetary Supply Growth IQ 2008
China 13,0% 18,0% 18,0% N/A
Russia 26,0% N/A 33,0% N/A
Indonesia 22,0% 28,0% 15,0% N/A
Norway 11,0% 8,0% 14,0% N/A
U.A.E. 19,0% 51,0% 42,0% 38,0%
Kuwait 11,0% 28,0% 23,0% 23,0%
India 19,0% 20,0% 22,0% 22,5%
Saudi Arabia 13,0% 27,0% 22,0% 22,0%
Denmark 11,0% 19,0% 22,0%
Turkey 20,0% 20,0% 21,0% 21,0%
South Africa 14,0% 12,0% 20,0% 21,0%
Australia 5,2% 3,3% 17,0% 20,0%
U.S. 1,6% 1,5% 6,0% 19,0%
Venezuela 1,6% 1,5% 6,0% 19,0%
Brazil 21,0% 17,0% 26,0% 17,0%
Sweden 0,5% 11,0% N/A 16,0%
Republic of Korea -0,6% 16,0% 15,0%
Poland 5,0% 17,0% 17,0% 15,0%
U.K. 6,0% 16,0% 13,0% 14,0%
Mexico 9,2% 10,0% 12,0% 14,0%
Canada 3,4% 8,0% 8,8% 13,0%
Singapore 10,0% 29,0% 12,0% 12,0%
E.U.-13 7,5% 2,3% 10,0% 10,5%
Japan 1,9% -1,2% 7,0% 9,0%
Switzerland 0,2% -2,0% -4,5% 2,6%

it looks good to hold a swiss account…stay away of BRICS and oil producers and commodity currencies, including the bolivar and the
greenback (same expected 19% inflation in 2008 according to my M3)

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Why are canadians so obsessed with this these days? I don’t remember all this world-class, best-in-the-world stuff when I was a kid.

It’s kind of embarrassing.

I love Canada, but there are a LOT of great places in the world. When I come across a person who swaggers, I always assume that deep down they’re a loser. So, I wish we would lose our swagger, it’s so much worse than cool, diffident confidence.

We’ve really tied our national pride into house prices. Too bad we didn’t decide to tie it to amazing landscaping, city planning and architecture

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Personal Story by a Lawyer from a Previous Asset Bubble. Can we Learn from the Past and How will the Housing Decline Impact You?

http://www.doctorhousingbubble.....mpact-you/

Rather poignant story by a lawyer from the 1930′s(in BOLD hi-lighted print)

Here is sample:

“The boom period of the last years of the World War and the extremely inflationary period of 1919 and 1920 were like the Mississippi Bubble and the Tulip Craze in Holland in their effect upon the general public. Farm prices shot sky high almost over night. The town barber and the small-town merchant bought and sold options until every town square was a real estate exchange. Bankers and lawyers, doctors and ministers left their offices and clients and drove pell mell over the country to procure options and contracts upon this farm and that, paying a few hundred dollars down and expecting to sell the rights before the following March brought settlement day. Not to be in the game marked one as an old fogy, while paper profits were pyramided and Cadillac cars and pleasure trips to the cities took the place of Fords and Sunday afternoon picnics. Everyone then maintained that there was only a little land as fertile as the fields of Iowa, Illinois, and Minnesota, and everyone sought to get his part before it was all gone. Like gold, it was limited in extent and of great potential value. Prices skyrocketed from $100 to $250 and $400 per acre without regard to the producing power of the land.”

======

Read the rest

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I agree:

I have been looking over Greater Fool archives and seeing Garth’s predictions unfold ( which were in contrast to what the Gov’t was saying ).

Garth more recently said the big banks will not fail…which is likely coded language that Gov’t will have to step in at some time.

This is a global economic crisis, Canada is small potatoes,highly dependent on solvent international customers, and if the bigger countries and their own banks are near collapse, WTF is this BS re: Canadian banks being solid, stable etc. Its simply a relativity game , not an absolute, and eventually they can ALL go over the cliff.

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Well, that’s good. That they’re starting to do it

“Oh, to the idiot who’s a lender at three banks”

For someone who just signed on the dotted line for a wealth-building empire, and got great deals on stock, you’re awfully testy today.

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john should pay particular attention to #17…..
the sea of SUVs’ fading off into the distance….

powerful statement indeed!

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QUOTE:

I think part of the problem in smaller cities is the agents. With small cities, “Realestate” agents can control markets especially with younger buyers and this is what happened to me.
I recently sold my home in Winnipeg, MB. The potential to make some coin was to great and my wife and I decided to flip and wait for the market to crash. Plus we could rent the same house for way less then mortgage. My house was listed for $159,900…….double what I paid 4 years ago. The agents had one open house and then offers were accepted the following night. There was only one offer and it was well under list. My agent told me I should expect more then my list so when I saw this I was surprised but then he told me not to worry. I could not believe what happened next. Both Agents, (listing agent and selling agent) sat at my kitchen table and phoned the buyer with some bad news. The buyer was told that there was another offer (“A Phantom Bid”) which was a total lie, but who was I to say anything. These young buyers got nervous and offered $200,000 for a 60 year old-800sqft bungalow with a leaky roof. WOW I was amazed and shocked……very happy to have made that much money but a feeling of guilt. How can this be legal??????? I watched these agents bamboozle this poor couple until they were willing to pay way to much for my home…….oh well young, greedy, uneducated buyers seem to rule the market. I would have to think there are going to be some agents in trouble soon. As for me, I paid off my tiny mortgage and will be buying a brand new house just as soon as the market crashes…….maybe I’ll buy two houses.

====

I wonder how much of this actually goes on ?

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March 19th, 2009 at 3:15 pm

The Canadain government has been printing money at exactly the same pace as the US devaluing every dollar of savings accordingly. ”

Do you have information/graph of this somewhere? I haven’t heard about Canada buying long-term GOC’s yet, although they have been threatening.

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Financial Armageddon

http://www.financialarmageddon.com/

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29771904/

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The US government lit the fuse to the $683 trillion dollar derivative’s debt bomb on Wednesday March 18, 2009 with the announcement the Fed would purchase $300 billion dollars worth of US Treasury used toilet paper and an additional $750 billion dollars worth of mortgage backed used toilet paper. In total the commitment to counterfeit over a trillion dollars leaves only $682 trillion dollars worth of derivatives to sort out.

Economics is all about price discovery. No one knows what the real value is of the $683 trillion dollars in derivatives. No one knows who owns what. No one knows who owes what. If left to its own devices, the market would lower prices until all assets had a value to someone. The government in its infinite wisdom has just short-circuited this discovery mechanism.

This is the end of the dollar. Everyone with any sense on earth will be unloading both their treasuries and mortgage-backed crap on the Fed. The Fed has just pissed $1 trillion of counterfeit money into a $683 trillion dollar cesspit. It can’t possibly fix the problem. When the world realizes the impact of the Fed monetizing all debt, there will be a total default. And then what happens?

The Mother of All Depressions.

The ability to publicly fund its debt has been what has kept the US government spending. Once that ability is dead, so is the government.

The meeting of the G20 in London on April 2, 2009 will be the most important financial meeting in history. If the delegates do not adopt a new gold standard of honest money, the dollar will totally default within a few months. The fuse has been lit. There is nothing the government can do beyond what they have already done. Nothing has worked. Nothing can work.

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The real issue is the threat that subprime foreclosures present to the overall market. Given that only 7% of the mortgage market is subprime, I’d have to say big whoop. (Though is 7% a big number? Hard to know. What was the proportion in the US, as a comparative?)

In the US, “subprime” mortgages were 100+ LTV, interest only or negative amortization.
Here, “subprime” just means “high rate”. Subprime is a scary word, but like the Globe article, you wonder if there’s more than a little overdramatization of the problem.

Look at it the other way. A little more than half of the foreclosure numbers are “prime” mortgages! Not much of a story, is it.

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#43 isn’t this something like a 700% increase YOY?

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#45 there’s nothing to indicate that this is any kind of sustained rally. The three months prior proved to be a suckers rally and the market can very well re test the November lows. It’s what markets do. If anything it’s ‘traders’ rally in a down trend where in fact the price channels indicate the potential for further weakness. When the traders are finished watching the MACD weaken they’ll sell out and leave the hopeful with thier hopes but no cash.

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Well of course, because stock market investors are on the buy side and the RE shills are on the sell side. So stock market investors may get it wrong, but they don’t have an incentive to get it wrong.

I agree we will see a bottom in housing well after a bottom in the stock market. RE cycles are incredibly sluggish. But don’t take a recovery in the stock market as any indication the RE prices are going detach from fundamentals even after a lag of a few years. I think this bottom is going to be a very long one. The bottom in the 80′s lasted essentially for four years, and there were a number of factors pulling the RE market up in the late 80′s that are not going to be around this time.

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