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It’s called high interest rates, and it has the amazing ability to silence those people who have been annoying you at dinner parties for the last 5 years with tales of their Trumponian sized empire.

It’ll be back to talking about corn and Eugene Levy in no time.

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someone obviously trying to clear their mortage and HOA fees..

And you don’t even get to keep it over the Olympics !

ummm, not for me

http://vancouver.en.craigslist.....41394.html

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“The annual rate of increase in the Bank of Canada’s core measure, which eliminates a number of the more volatile series, both energy and non-energy, and thus better reflects the underlying trend in inflation, continues to increase close to the two per cent mid-range target.”

http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/.....e-038.html

According to this article, you are both wrong, at least at present. Volatile sectors are excluded from the monthly calculations, which may just be the feds gaming the system or there may be a reasonable argument there.
Also, it would seem that federal stimuluses have have as yet little inflationary effect. Would be interesting to hear what you guys think of these “official” inflation numbers.

Personally, I think month to month this is impossible to get a handle on, so I’m interested in looking ahead for the long-term trend.
How do you see energy, housing, and stimulus affecting prices twenty-four months from now?

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Your dollar buys more house than a year ago – everywhere (including here).
And more stocks.
And more gas.
And more commodities.
And about the same amount of most everything else.
And rents a bigger condo.

What’s that called?

And what’s your definition of “becomes increasingly worthless”?

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I think the iron was imports, and the wood was exports, and the lack of both is scary.

But when I go to the ferry, Delta port looks really busy shipping out coal.

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R1 – unemployed 1 year or more
R2 – unemployed 3 months or more
R3 – comparable to the United States rate
R4 – official rate
R5 – plus discouraged searchers
R6 – plus waiting group (recall, replies, long-term future starts)
R7 – plus involuntary part-timers (in full-time equivalents)
R8 – plus discouraged searchers, waiting group, portion of involuntary part-timers

http://cansim2.statcan.gc.ca/c.....Id=2820085

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http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article12114.html

” Years ago I was friends with old man from Texas, he had a big silver buckle on his belt and crocodile-skin boots, and he used to eat three fried eggs, a slice of steak, for breakfast, extraordinary! Lovely guy; full of stories, he had a sidekick called Ron, and Ron wore “Blues Brothers” shades, and never said a word. I was just a kid and he was like in that Jerry Jeff Walker song…”Desperado Waiting For A Train” which he used to play on his car cassette-player over and over; it was that long ago. Anyway he’d been through the S&L and well, let’s say, he was a long way from home.

One day I asked him “what happened”? He said “Son”…when he was being serious he always used to say that…”Son when the money starts chasing the projects not the projects chasing the money, that’s the time”.

Other samples:

Law #3: Greed starts bubbles, fear drives them.

Law #7: The amount of wealth created by a bubble is always less than zero.

(Good article).

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The reduction in port traffic shows imports are almost 3 X’s the exports.

The imports , by and large, are basically loonie store stuff and other cheap manufactured goods. We sell them the raw materials to produce the aforementioned.

The ports want to expand? Gateway? lol.
No…they want to convert that prime waterfront to more condos and shift the truck traffic elsewhere. Improving Gateway any further simply worsens the imbalance…we are exportng more jobs than we are creating.

Economists talk about our need to be more competitive, higher efficiencies,higher productivity blah, blah. Tell that to bankrupt auto manufacturing sector or BC’s idle sawmills.

There is a point that greater productivity is a race to the bottom, it leaves a lot of unemployed in their wake. When this mess started last fall I asked other posters if they had any info re: the ports traffic…and a few did note it was down back then. When driving recently over the Ironworkers bridge…a look on the North Van side and the West side of the bridge shows a bare parking lot..isn’t this the lumber export dock ?

The dot.com bomb and the RE bubble basically shows that Gov’ts and banksters have run out of ideas. Fiat money and paper shuffling at the speed of light is not a lifeboat, it’s cement shoes.

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then again, sucks to be those in the readjustment firing line, so let’s hope they adjust well to the new situation.

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http://www.canada.com/vancouve.....595df77362

Quote:
Longshore worker Ryan Groening woke up at dawn one recent rainy weekday and drove from his Port Coquitlam condo to the east Vancouver dispatch hall, hoping for work at Vancouver’s port.

The 40-minute trip was fruitless, as there was no work for him and dozens of other longshore workers.

Groening usually worked five days a week last year, but so far this year he’s been getting two to three days of work a week. “It’s like going from full-time to part-time,” he said.

Like his father, Groening was lured to the busiest Canadian port by the variety of work and the ability to make an honest living and “raise a family on a union wage.”

But annual wages have plummeted for many workers and nearly disappeared for some as work has dried up during the economic downturn.
========

Quote:
Even the A-board workers have seen their salaries plummet from $80,000 last year to a projected $40,000 this year, Westrand said.

“It’s definitely a lot slower,” said Koraley Tanner, an A-board worker. “I haven’t seen a job for quite a while.”

Annual salaries for B-board workers have nose-dived from $70,000 last year to a projected $20,000 for this year, if they’re lucky. One employee on the second-to-last T board last got work in February but still comes in three to four times a week seeking work.

On the OO board, workers will likely make just $140 to $1,000 this year, compared with up to $15,000 last year.

=====
Quote:

Through May at Port Metro Vancouver, imports had plummeted 35 per cent and exports had fallen 13 per cent, compared with the same period last year.

======

Quote:
Groening, 28, and his wife don’t go to the movies any more. They cut back on buying clothes. And they’ll skip vacation this year.

“We were thinking about getting a new car, and that’s not happening,” Groening said.

And as workers lose hours, they face the prospect of losing the top medical plan, which kicks in with 300 hours of work per quarter.

==

A good ” canary in the mine ” story re: economy .

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Total deductions:
$3,475

My wife and I are in a similar situation income wise so I’d like to comment on your numbers a bit.

1. 500$ a month for gas. It seems really high to me maybe we just have a full effecient car but even with my fairly long commute it has never went over $150 in a month.
2. Two cars. You don’t see many 2 car families in Vancouver. With the new skytrain the wife and I could seriously get by without one. We won’t but it is possible if we were forced.
3. Layoff. You missed what is in my mind a major risk what if Bob and Mary suddenly lose half that income. The numbers get worse in a hurry. EI is nice but it doesn’t help much once you are at a higher income.

All the other numbers seem pretty good to me.

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http://www.vancouversun.com/bu.....story.html

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20.....0717163530

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#29 M, let me take a flyer here and let you know that I think the government is playing a game of ‘backy-stabby’ with the public through the media. I think the reason that the MSM isn’t on the story is because when they are the government cuts off their advertising and access. It looks as if the government is being forthcoming but they play a cynical game of keeping the masses in the dark, so as not to ‘create a panic, obstensively. Its the same game that they play with FOI docs. The info is available but you’ll have to crawl over barbed wire to get to it.

Now , you have found some info. The question is, how many people are going to go through that exercise? The fact that it isn’t mainstream means that 99.9% of Canadians are completley in the dark. Ipso Facto it doesn’t exist.

I have brought up the raw sewage issue a time or two and shockingly people react violently to the news, as if it couldn’t be possible and yet the issues stands as one of the all time biggest embarrassments of this Province. Does it get reported? It is a fact that 99% of ground fish in English Bay display pre cancerous lesions on their flesh. Is that a goood enviornment for your kids? Does this make the news? Who’s going to run the story risking denial of access and funding through ad revs?

Like the X-Files said “the truth is out there’. But truth isn’t always popular. I have brought up the alarming stats of police manipulation of the court system and the fact that Canada now has more death by cop kills than any other western country. People seem shocked to hear it. Total jaw dropping disonance. They want to think of the musical ride and Dudley do right. The fact is that the RCMP has deteriorated into a murderous regime that answers to know one and fully expects not to answer to the citizens at any time soon.

http://www.vancouversun.com/ne.....story.html

The truth can be very uncomfortable. The H1N1 issue is really big, a lot of people are dying unreported. The story is that the hospitals are under strict orders to call the deaths anything else but H1N1 Swine Mexican Flu. As we have seen in the MSM, the deaths that can’t be hidden are constantly renamed ” as having died from a previously existing condition’. After the first 25 or so don’t you have to start recognizing the pattern?

The IOC and VANOC have requested that in the event of an outbreak during the Olympics that THEY, the organizers get the vaccine available first!!! That was a line out of a long blather by a reporter on Global. It was one short line in a long speech about preparedness.

The death toll is being reported in real time in many other countries. It is only known to a few intrepid researchers like yourself in Canada. The general public is totally unprepared and like the SARS debacle we will pay for the governments preferance to keepp the hotel room full as opposed to marshalling the public against the coming epidemic that liteerally everyone everywhere says is coming. Except in Canada of course.

We get lied to a lot, it kind of pisses me off, how about you?

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#31 O, you’re on the right track. The trouble is ( as the authors you have referanced have pointed out many times) is that money supply meddling has overrun any gains in productivity that are achieved. This is the basic fallacy of Keynsian economics.

Systemic inflation was disagreeable but workable unti greedy governments weren’t willing to pull back when the waves began to trough to ever expand the revenue goals they had set for themselves. Initially the stated rate was 2% p/a, now its 14% ++.

The BOC has continued to print massive quantities of paper driving inflation up as the dollar becomes increasingly worthless. Many of the same authors you referance recognize this game as a giant ponzi scheme which has come precariously close to running its course.

The BOC has ‘intervened’ in the CDN dollar market consistently since the 1970′s. This has served to keep buisnesses on the wrong side of productivity gains as they can not afford to expand on a level playing field with improvements in capital equipment upgrades. The low dollar serves the politicians well but deals the citizens the joker. It is the reason why the CDN citizen has the lowest standard of living and the lowest wages of any industrialized country. As people have seem recently Mexico and Canada are tied (almost @ 13 & 11 respectively) in GDP output.

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