rb

LOL Capitalist bastards ;)

Valeant?

Isn't that something all of us are already doing?

Toronto up 5% MoM

There's slim to no chance of rate hikes in Canada. Why would BoC raise rates if we don't have inflation and the economy isn't overheating. Because the cool kids are doing it isn't a good enough reason in central banking. The BoC will not brick the economy just to keep up with the Americans. The level of debt will basically ensure that the economy keeps sputtering and not have a strong takeoff. Even if through some miracle (low CAD?) the economy starts taking off and we get some inflation a small rate hike will be enough to cool the economy back down because so much of the debt is variable rate.

Not at all, rb, at least not to me - I actually find these family stories here on CoBF fascinating - vey fascinating indeed. Do you mind sharing your country of origin? - From another post of yours yesterday, I get the perception, that you are of European origin - I have also noted earlier, that you actually have an extraordinary general knowledge of German business, considering that you are a Canadian citizen. Not at all John. I'm originally from Romania and my family moved here when I was in my teens. The fact that I lived and worked in London for a number of year I think broadened my horizon and understanding of things. But generally most of my knowledge of business has been acquired through boring old fashion studying.

That's true, but MySpace had a large user base too. Plus, WhatsApp and Instagram were bought not built. It's feasible someone comes up with the next big thing.. I think Apple's ecosystem (esp on the consumer side) is stickier than what most people believe because everything is integrated. Remember when everyone was on BBM? MSN Messenger? ICQ? Social networks can go down very quickly when something new/better comes along.

So in Canada there are all these pathways to $80-100k careers. Plus benefits of course. So many options to get to those numbers. There are quite a few options to push that out to $150k if you excel in your field as well. All without capital risk or other business risks, just an investment in a career. Meanwhile, when you look at owner earnings on businesses so many fail to consistently exceed that $80-100k level even with you managing the company. That is the main problem I see in Canada. You are generally better off to go the career route unless you are willing to own multiple small businesses or do exceptionally well. Yes, I know there are exceptions of course but these seem to be the average numbers for businesses. Not sure how that compares to the US. This is so fascinating to me, it completes part of the puzzle of something I'd seen while there, but couldn't put a finger on. When visiting over the past few years I had this sense, or feeling like I was in the US in the 1980s or 1990s. People all still dress nice for work, it seemed most everyone had a nice office job. It was this blast from the past. But it was more then that. I think your comment hits it. Most Canadians have a safe income, or a higher safe income from a company. They're medium or larger companies that provide this. Because of this you have a very homogenous work environment, similar to what we had in the past in the US with more bigger companies. Now in the US it seems we support more of a hustler mentality. Even downtown the only people in suits are lawyers and bankers. Places are filled most hours by people supporting themselves a variety of ways. From working at home to stringing together jobs etc. The freelance/entrepreneurial culture is strong, and not just in the Bay Area. I hired some guys to put up a new fence for me. This was a lower class guy who had a crew of neighbors and family working for him. He did the fence cheap, he worked his own hours. Sometimes they'd arrive at 8am, other days at noon. Some times they'd disappear for two hours to get coffee. The guy pulled together jobs and did alright for himself. I have a neighbor on my street that does something similar. There seems to be a lot of diversity in working situations here. A lot of people working for themselves, or working in small groups. I know my dad went from working for a company to just doing consulting on his own for a few years and now he's back with a company. The go on your own route is popular. Same with side gigs, I know a ton of people who do stuff on the side to make a few extra bucks. I'd wager that 20-25% or more of the work force has a side gig. Of those I'd say 90%+ are hoping the side gig turns into something real. We're friends with a doctor and his dentist wife, they were growing shrimp in their basement for a while. These are people making deep into the six figures each, and in their basement they had invested tens of thousands building a pool to grow fresh gulf shrimp in the north. I asked him if the shrimp business took off what would he do, he said he'd quit being a doctor and run the shrimp thing. Another doctor who's a neighbor runs a pool cleaning business on the side. It's really like entrepreneurism is baked into our culture. From your comment it seems that isn't the case in Canada. People make really good money working for someone else and there's no motivation to do something on the side. In the US it seems everyone has some moon shot project they're brewing up. My sense from reading is that China is similar, the Chinese are doing the same things we do, and I'm guessing the outcome will be the same eventually. I actually think you guys have it wrong. I think that the situation you see with the side gigs and all comes from necessity and not so much from drive. Saying "I'm entrepreneurial" sounds a lot better than saying "I have to do this because I can't find something better". Also if you've read Richard Gibbons post you would see that Canada is very entrepreneurial as well. Maybe it's the Canadian in me but I don't see the virtue in working 80 hour weeks and always be hustling when you have an option to make roughly the same money working 40 hours and then go home and enjoy time with your family and friends. In addition if the US system is superior then you would expect to see significantly higher levels of income and wealth for Americans compared to Canadians. However the evidence doesn't support this. One exception is at the 1% level where income in the US are significantly higher than in Canada. But that doesn't matter for most people. In response to BG, there are tons of Chinese restaurants, take outs, and laundries in Canada. There are no barriers to entry for this sort of stuff. You're free to open one whenever you want. The government in fact will offer you a whole bunch of incentives and tax breaks. If you want to work long hours for low pay nobody will stop you. The thing is that up here the Chinese rice farmer also has the option to go work at an auto parts factory for $20/hr + profit sharing + benefits + overtime. It's nice to have options.

Very mature. Now wonder why my family isn't sorry about why we didn't choose to emigrate to the US.

Yea, still waiting for that link smartass

That may be though Canada is about 1/10 the size of America so we're getting back to that numbers thingy. I am a highly educated and well off individual. Where is that link where I ask and apply to come to America though?

This is a good point since everyone is talking about asking. Currently in the US do you give people the option to ask? If so please send me to the place where you ask. If not please stop talking about asking.

Since we're sharing immigration stories on this thread let me share mine as an immigrant to Canada. In the late 90s my family decided to emigrate. We said to the Canadian government we would like to emigrate to Canada. The Canadian government said ok. We flew to Pearson airport (Toronto). There they stamped our passports and we were in. Once we were in my parents (I was still a teenager) applied for jobs. Jobs were a bit dicey in the beginning but both of my parents found jobs withing 9 months. My mom at a sketchy web design company for $17 an hour and my dad at GE for $20 an hour. Both lost their jobs withing 18 months (recession and everything) and had to start the whole painful process all over again but they found new jobs. Now my mom is lead software architect at a development company and my dad is an engineer at a large auto parts manufacturer. Both make comfortable 6 figure incomes. Me and my two sisters were educated here and went to university. Our undergrad cost around 5k a year. They were paid by my parents from "general funds". One of my sisters is an accountant with the big 4, the other is a project manager at a large Canadian pharma. After undergrad I did a grad degree at one of those fancy business schools where you have a lot of people are called the III or the IV but my parents didn't pay for that. Today I'm an investment manager. Me and my sisters all make in excess of 6 figures. We never had to hide from the Canadian equivalent of ICE or INS or from any lettered agency - there was no reason to. The only person in my family that had to work 80 hours a week was me when I worked corp dev and M&A in London and while I feel I was gypped the comp was well above minimum wage. Compared to other stories posted here mine is down right boring. Maybe it's the Canadian way. But I don't wish to trade places with the other posters and in my family nobody is sorry that we emigrated to Canada instead of the US. Make of this what you wish.

Yes and no to your question in parts. If you are a Canadian resident you get full healthcare (medicare). In regards to pension not really and I'm not sure they ever did. There are 3 parts. Old age security - this is based on how many years you've lived in Canada between 18 and 65. So if you're Johnny come lately you don't really get much. Second is Canada Pension Plan which is based on payroll deductions - sort of like SS in the US - so if you haven't worked here you don't get any of that either. The third is Guaranteed Income Supplement. This is mainly aid for low income seniors. It is means tested and mainly phased out around 18K global income. So basically if you haven't lived and contributed here you don't really get a pension.

Name one thing that had originated in Canada in the last 50 years that people from all over the world has found useful on a daily basis (Pamela Anderson excluded). US is the center(or epicenter) of this planet. Weather its internet, google, Apple ,Uber, F16s, Mars missions, medical breakthroughs, shale ,politics , movies, this country rules the world. Immigrants understands this energy and the potential. And the ones that can't make it here go to other places. Well if you're gonna be so obnoxious... just off the top of my head the first smartphone, Canadaarm (along with a shitload of other aerospace stuff NASA used a lot), prosthetics, digital camouflage, and my personal favorite - the wonderbra. Now if you've read my post you would have picked up that US is indeed really rich because it's a developed country and it had a lot of people. For Canada to rival the US in terms of wealth it would mean that the average Canadian should have about 10 times the wealth of the average American. The size gives it a critical mass. But soon China will be "richer" than the US. Does that mean that the Chinese are "richer" than the Americans? No. Because of the size thingy.

I know lots of people have different points of views about this situation but here is mine. CoBF is not just a message board but more of a community. Moreover it is a community made of pretty smart people. Yes we're all passionate about investing. But as a community of smart people we have other thoughts as well. Sometimes it's politics, sometimes it's philosophy, sometimes it's how we approach life. Sometimes these "non investing" topics can get heated. It may be my "European" nature but I think that that's generally what happens in a community. It's how you work through diverging points of view and hopefully learn things and evolve. On the politics side I can say that I've learned a lot from rkbabang and DTEJD1997 despite the fact that I have different views from them. On the life/philosophy side there's been so much interesting stuff posted here that it's impossible to mention all the posters. In closing, I think that if you start to choke this line of discussion or that line of discussion you kill the community aspect of the board and with it its dynamism. Some topics can get heated. But I remember that the Valeant thread was red hod. Nobody suggested that be shut down so people can take a breather. But in the end mine is only an opinion it's Sanjeev's board he can do with it whatever he pleases.

So now immigrants use weather as a determining factor? Most immigrants in Canada go to Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver. Weather in Toronto and Montreal is not that different from New York - traditionally and immigrant hub. Vancouver weather is much milder. Australia is a developed country with an immigration program similar to Canada. You apply, you get accepted, you have "papers" can work, start a business, etc. and you have a clear and easy path to citizenship.

They're all good companies. But from that group I'd drop Facebook.

To get back to the original premise.... Basically you can look at the question from a lot of ways. But generally America isn't that "rich". America seems really rich because it's a developed country and it has a lot of people. It's population is the largest by far among developed countries and 3rd largest globally. You put all of the people together and you'll get to a lot of collective wealth. But when you look at western developed countries their productivity is pretty tightly clumped together. Some are somewhat more productive than the US. Some are somewhat less productive than the US. But they're all clustered around a point. There's nothing special about the US except for having lots of people. From an immigrant perspective I don't see why the US would be such a good place for immigrants. Maybe in the past but not in the current climate. I especially don't see why the US would be superior to Canada and Australia for immigrants.

The VIX has been pretty low for a few years now. My feeling is that it has something to do with the reason why we've seen increased correlations for the past years. One thing to keep in mind is that over the past few decades every crash and crisis has set new records for the VIX. Just food for thought.

I don't think there's a bad healthcare system in the US. It's just really expensive. But I don't think there's much hope of improving it because of economic and political reasons. Firstly economic. Healthcare cost is at 17.1% of GDP. But your cost is someone's income. At 17% it's pretty much the biggest sector of the economy and makes a lot of money. This gives it a lot of money and influence. In turn it will use this influence in order to defeat cost controls so it/they can keep making the money. Secondly political. This is where the public/private ideologies come into play. Because of this when you try to pass something like Obamacare or any other reform it will be heavily flawed from the start because they have to make a lot of compromises just to get it passed. Then the other side will will try its best to make it even crappier so they can get up on a soap box and say "see it doesn't work". Basically healthcare reform fails because nobody wants it to work. Think about it for a second how messed up the ideologies are. Basically from a pure self interest perspective poor states like Alabama and Mississippi should be all in for cheap gov't healthcare and rich states like New Jersey, California, and Maryland should prefer fancy, expensive private care. However in reality their preferences are completely opposite from their self interest.

The Munger classic: "I don't think we mind killing chickens and we're against nuclear war."

I don't want to interfere too much with your live posting of the meeting from down on the ground Graham. I think you're doing a fantastic job.

Using the discount on the used American cars makes sense if you have a way to get them fixed cheaply and easily (let's say you're a mechanic). But if they break down less than once in a blue moon, but if they break down more often and you need to take time off from work/find alternative transportation when they break then costs are piling up really quick and you blow through the discount in no time.

They do so to some extent. I couple of years ago when I was looking to buy a Buick for my mom and I was doing research. The car was made at two factories - in Germany and in Canada. As I was doing my research I found out that people figured out that the ones made in Canada were more reliable and were looking to buy those ones - identifying them by their VIN.