Jaygo

I really don’t think this is the case. Productivity can be misrepresented by numbers. Sure we can all see the efficiency in apartment towers and on a pure numbers basis humans living in small boxes uses less resources but many miss the societal pressure it induces. Also we miss the innovation that spawns from a dad and his child tinkering with a lawn mower or a bicycle in the garage ect To me, cities breed a certain type of person who is less resourceful and probably less Inovative since the world they inhabit is already built and not in their domain to change anyway. A beautiful city can have inspirational and intellectual qualities but that not where most live. when it comes to repairing natural demographics a tower won’t cut. Kids need space and parents need space too.

The veterans housing program is an example of what is possible. I dont think the powers that be have the same goals anymore. My tin foil hat side tells me that the goal is sticking people in condos in urban centres rather than SFH and nuclear family formation.

that's literally my current house. Its the best but I do want a bigger garage. Built in 1958 a ranch bungalow of 1100ft. Tiny bedrooms but a beautiful stone fireplace to read by and an ancient wet bar in the basement rec room to drink a beer and play floor hockey on the old parquet with the kids. What else do you need?

To the above, my BF is building an infill, Demo permit is $18k, permit to remove old well and septic plus inspections $9k estimated building permit $87K as per plan. So over $100k to the city before he ever puts up a stick. Tell me how we are going to provide affordable housing and reboot our economy when the whole thing is set up as a giant racket. Ive said it before, canada is one giant cruise ship ( the nicest one ) owned by the TSX60 and the major developers. We have crazy immigration because they are considered customers and not citizens for the good of the country. Bell and Rogers need more wireless subscribers, Con Drain and Tacc are slowing down. How about 1.2 million new yearly customers for the cause, to say otherwise would be xenophobia these days.

Nimbyism is a totally natural thing, we all want space and we want to shape our own worlds not shaped by someone else. In my former SFH we were a small home with a bit of land, A neighboring farm was developed into mega mansions of so little class and taste you would be astounded. 16000 sq ft of pure dick measuring, it was a mix of Victorian ornateness mixed with new rich/ middle eastern opulence. Every house had a copula (non functional of course) and covered porticos to the separate garages, gables, dormers, Fake copper that will never patina, everything black and sharp contrasted colours as if earthen hues made you poor, flat roofs to scapegoat house height rules. Just pure shit. Housing as warm, dry roof over your head for a family is really not expensive to build. showing off via housing and the related morons on council with their outrageous dev fees is expensive. The rules are generally made by homeowners who no longer have growing families so these millennials are f..d if they dont take the rules into their owns hands. I am forever a ladder pulling up NIMBY now and im under 40.

Acapulco Mexico got hit very hard overnight from a cat 5. It looks like major damage from wind and surge. Not sure if it has any financial effect on these insurers but it does show the hurricane season is not over for North America.

It aint over till the Victoria's Secret model sings. Ill be here all week folks

what are you looking at

I feel like Canada is in recession now. Less so in small retail purchases but more so in larger items and higher value goods that people are holding off from. Were looking for a living room set, every single big box furniture store is a ghost town (except Ikea with those damn meatballs! ) The real estate wealth effect is starting to bite pretty hard I think. Restaurants are still pretty busy as are malls but id say smaller tickets. Retail sales can increase as GDP does not. Look at the consumer companies, most are saying that volumes are down, 3M at an investor day said they are seeing disinflation in most suppliers segments. As for the US im not sure.

I just finished this book last night. A great read if a little repetitive since it details yearly trades for 20 odd years. one thing is for sure history really does rhyme. He speaks about the 70’s like it’s today. He speaks about 98-99 like it was 2021. arab states troubles spiking oil, bad government, huge deficits, unprofitable tech, Citibank being shittybank. It’s literally all the same. it also hits home the levels of the dow. The book starts at about 700 and he talks about all the calamities that are affecting the market and the ups and downs. Well today it’s around 30,000 and we still have ups and downs that feel like hell. Take that for what it’s worth to you but I’m pretty sure we all need to chill out a bit more ala dealraker.

Japanese toilets for the win!

Also we may have a lot of household dept but as far as I know we have very low public dept compared to the other g7’s. We also have a major advantage over the others in our geographic and resource advantage. to me if the citizens own what’s here we are per capita richer than everyone else along with the Guyanese, Norwegians and Qataris. But Canada has incredible quantities of every resource not just energy so we are diversified over the cycle.

I guess so. Rates could tip us into a financial depression but there is also a lot of positives as far a resources and pretty decent demographics. House prices here are nuts but that’s just a currency game really. If the Canuck buck was down 20 points then house prices wouldn’t be so bad compared to other western democracies. I could see a major economic boom with the right kind of leadership in place. someone once said during a resource cycle don’t buy Chilean miners buy Chilean banks and consumer stocks. I personally feel Canada could have a spectacular century if we can get back to the basics of work hard, build families, don’t shoot each other. Crazy I know.

It certainly makes it easier when the Canadian index has been really bad lately. The financials and utes that make up the top ten are getting sold daily. I guess the expectation is a major recession or depression in Canada that brings down the banks? even CNR is at low multiples to the last 20 years.

It’s definitely in the back of my mind. Lots of puts and takes and everybody is pulling in the other direction so it’s unlikely. deflation to the point where people wait to buy items expecting a better price which then devolves into depressed prices and economic activity generally involves a complete lack of confidence in their future earning power and a really significant mindset shift. small bouts of deflation are very possible with dept deflation economics but are generally short lived.

Dont forget the great depression was caused by government interventions. Interest rates were raised quickly to stem a stock market driven inflationary boom. That boom was drawing money from around the globe making it more difficult for Germany and a lot of emerging markets to continue to fund their economies, as rates rose those economies basically froze up. At the same time as the stock market crash happened a different level of government was enacting deglobalizing trade barriers called the smoot hawley act that started as tariffs on agg to protect farmers but other countries got pissed and enacted more trade barriers as a tit for tat retaliation. Each seemingly good idea cascaded into a worse unintended consequence. A classic big government issue. Dont ever underestimate the damage these dummies can have on the common man. At least it isn't another war.

Ive just listened to John Neffs book and was kind of taken aback by his strategy. It makes intuitive sense to buy low P/E stocks that still have a glimmer of growth in them and ive looked at my US centric RRSP portfolio and had a realization that it is of mostly of high quality but very high P/E. TJX at 25pe, GGG about 30pe, CSU around 60pe COST around 38pe so decided to try and bottom feed a little and bring things into a slightly lower band. Some may say that is silly to sell good companies for bad but if one dollar in TJX buys me 3 cents of earnings and one dollar in home depot buys me 6 cents or BTI at close to 10 cents does that not seem like a good trade?

I'm a sucker for punishment myself Dean.

There is no doubt that these guys are the poster child for litigation right now but is the plan to just kill the company. The PFAS is mostly due to contamination from firefighting foams as far as I know. So I guess the juridictions are not liable just the manufacture? The earplug thing is nuts too. Did the servicemen never hobby shoot without earplugs or go to a concert or used a skill saw without earplugs. Like how the hell did 6 billion worth of hearing loss happen just because of some earplugs. I guess my distaste for an unfair litigation really shouldn't be my investment thesis and I'm thankful for your pushback.

On MMM. This company has so many patents in so many products its crazy, literally every consumer / industrial item is filled with 3m adhesives, films, fluids and chemicals. That's the good, and that's the moat. at 1.5 times revenue it seems more than ok to me. The bad of course is the what if. As far as I can tell we may be entering a phase of the political economy where we go after the makers, and distribute to the takers. Its our atlas shrugged moment i guess. I think if 3m is in trouble who the hell isn't? Our family favorite Berkshire too. So it isn't to say that the legal risks are not great for 3m but isn't the entire industrial / chemical industry also facing legal trouble. Look at utilities getting sued for fires for evidence of this, why not compass minerals for salt pollution of our lakes and rivers, chevron for everything, Pepsi for giving me a fat ass. Everybody is liable for something. I am going to keep 3m in the kennel but appreciate the discussion.

I just finished “the box”this evening. My takeaway is it is as tough an industry as any and twice as capital intensive and cyclical. An excellent book by the way as well. what is your investment interest in shipping if I may ask.

Revamping my RRSP with some real dogs this morning. I may be on a reach for yield but its a fun experiment so we shall see. I have effectively sold half of my position in VOO / SCHD to scrape a few off the sidewalk and put them in my new portfolio of dogs, the kennel. All have plumbed new lows lately and have bad stories attached. I plan to give this 24-36 months to develop and I will compare to the original holding. 50/50 VOO and SCHD Roughly equal 7500 increments of the following MMM Killing the planet one non-stick pan at a time. DG Rats, robberies and fire safety violations C Shitibank all banks are 0's anyway MO Kills its customers and nobody smokes anymore BTI Same problems as MO but even worse as they are British with a French CEO, yikes! already own a bunch but added here. HD Nobody will ever reno again with rates this high, hovels are the new Mcmansion AAP the ugly stepchild in an otherwise incredible oligopoly DIS See the Disney thread, nothing more to add. I am also considering CCI ,SWK, MHK, BUD and some others but this is where i'm starting off. I'm not sure about US reits in a Canadian registered and im already pretty heavy in reno/ home markets with GGG and SD. I would also love to get some Food in there but until someone finds a finger in their cup of coffee at starbucks ill wait and hope for the worst. They were all one time market darlings but have pissed off the market gods. Maybe one day they will shine again and Ill clip some coupons while I wait or they all go out like old Yeller and I retire a year later. Having fun with this one and at less than 10% of my portfolio i'm ok with some roller coasters. I really think all will prevail long term. If anyone has another pooch to send to the kennel i'm all ears.

I truly believe that successful investing is hampered by extremely high intelligence. This stuff is not that complicated to do reasonably well and most very high IQ people need to find esoteric shit to do to feel good about themselves. Ive said before ive got a buddy who is dumb as a bag of hammers and he has time and time again crushed it on simple and inelegant but obvious in hindsight investments. Facebook ipo, lake shore gold, Florida real estate in 2010 or 2011, oil in 2020, just loads of stuff and im like, huh you did what? ya well im on facebook and everybody i know is so its a got to be good buy. Well i went to Fort Lauderdale once and there's no snow in winter so I bought a 3 bed condo for 60 grand. He still has a damn Hotmail account and he's 8x his money on google. I just wished my lack of intelligence would translate to some gains lol

To me inequality is probably not going to fix without a major cultural shift in America. Having rich and poor is totally ok as long as the tide is rising but with politicians trying to fix inequality without getting to the root of the problem they are just making it hard for everyone. Is antitrust going to fix our problems.? we need more Jeff Bezos not less. I say a cultural shift because when I look at Canada and the US I cant help but think that it is full of idiots. I'm not trying to be an asshole but our culture tends to reward mediocrity and generally dumb behavior. Look at the wasteland that is pop culture for a moment and see what our children's receptors are being fired by. ( jersey shore, my 600lb life, morons on TikTok, all the lib bullshit, Jerry springer, the view, people were eating tide pods for F sake.) that combined with legalizing and condoning drug use and it would appear we are in an era of underachieving or something akin to China's century of humiliation. This tidal wave of stupidity is of course is not applicable to everybody and that is why we have massive inequality. To say that myself, a guy who is up at 4:30 to setup my crew, and studies history and economics for fun is not going to vastly outperform someone who scrolls Instagram all day, eats soap for kicks and puts in the bare minimum at work and life is a joke. If you want to fix inequality long term without failed socialist experiments you need to make being smart cool, make honesty, hard work and success something to take pride in again.

But in what currency can you take advantage. If Chinese equities go up do to low rates and money printing will the currency go down in that case?