Jaygo

Totally agree with both of you. A new road through the jungle will have a bigger impact than a 4th or 5th lane on a highway and may never actually recoupe the cost. A privatized bridge may be a good solution to reduce corruption in procurement and ongoing maintenance. My argument is if its about money and we are literally burning it in foreign wars maybe a few bucks towards a bridge or tunnel or new school doesn't seem too bad to increase the dept on. Especially when the government is controlling the level of debasement of that dept. My second argument is about the long term viability of North America to other places in the world. Money spent in Saudi Arabia considering it is a scorched desert with a dwindling central resource may not be the same as money spent in the American heartland or a place like northern canada with its unknown trillions of economic value yet to be extracted. I feel that a version of life in canada and the united states could last centuries so laying the foundation now does not necessarily drown our kids in dept as much as pave the way to a better future for them. Look at Europe, look at the cobble stone roads that were set 1200 years ago. Are we drowning in the depts of those roads or of the churches and cathedrals that bring millions of guests a year. I think a shit bridge with crooked contractors paid for by sleazy politicians should not be the base case for our dept financed infrastructure projects. Especially since the money is likely just changing hands of North Americans anyway.

Dont you think they will just inflate the dept away? so that although our children's depts are astronomical numbers it will be just as manageable as today (plus or minus a bit) Imagine people from Toronto of the 1950's hearing I bought a rural house for millions, they would flip out considering they paid just $ 10,000 for theirs. But in fact im just a guy living with bigger numbers like my kids will likely be

Who in their right mind doesn't see that 100 today is not 100 in 50 years. The 100 year Austrian bond was the height of lunacy as if Austria will be a Sovern nation in 100 years anyway? People who lend, banks ect are playing a different game with different ideas. Buffett buys treasuries to earn a bit while waiting for something real to come by like a railroad. He doesn't do it to make 1-5% Lending money long term is tough to understand unless the rates far exceed the level of inflation. In the 70's a big mac was less than 50 cents, today its 10x that or more. Our paper/ digit money looses value every day and has for a long time. Gold was 154 in 1974 today its 2400. Gold is money, paper or digits is just for transactions. Does it matter what the transaction number is? 10-100-1000 its just a digit. Will my house cost 18 million Canadian in 50 years, maybe maybe not who cares as long as its roughly the same value as today. I bet it will, gas will be 12 bucks a L, gold 25k OZ. all just a number. What we should care about is life expectancy, number of people starving, happiness, wars, have the leaf's won the cup ect

I kind of have to give it to Luca here. The CCP is regulating for the Chinese's populace, the US and Canada i'm not so sure. In Canada i'm regulated to shit but it never seems to be regulation in my best interest. Its more about protecting an industry or organization. A quick example would be a playground at my kids school. I have a quote for $ 82,000.00 from a school approved vendor. I can buy the exact ( exact! ) same structure on Alibaba for $ 11,000 including shipping. I could put it up for another 5-10k max. It requires 18 post holes with cement and then assembly. The board has indicated that it must be a board certified vendor and the playground needs to be certified. Ok so lets just assume the board is concerned with safety of the kids.( yeah no shit, they are my kids and their friends) why not allow other vendors to be allowed into the bidding process. The structure is coming from China, getting a certification plate in canada and then the vendor is making 60 k in a week or less. The end results of most regulation in NA is to reduce competition and protect incumbents inmo, not to protect our youth who are dumbing at an alarming rate or to protect our heath and best interests. Having never gone to China i am not totally sure but most Chinese i know are kind hearted in general , a bit rude and pushy especially if a lineup or free stuff is involved, mostly peaceful and very hardworking. All together pretty damn good people just like everyone else.

What if you borrowed to build a highway or bridge to increase productivity. As long as the money is not burned on military shit who cares If the deficit goes up as long as the standard of living also goes up. We have all seen that 100 dollars of dept today is essentially worthless in 50 years so why not just keep kicking the can down the road. Sure if I save 100 dollars that will also be worthless but I dont save, I buy assets that tend to hold their value. I think if you were a sinking island nation with few prospects than dept would be an issue but the North American landmass is going to be habitable for longer time frame frame than any of us should care so id say lets keep spending and building and getting better. Should Baltimore reconsider thier bridge because of interest rates? I'm not replying to argue, Im just trying to wrap my head around things like this.

An empire cannot really fall unless there is a suitable replacement. The UK gave way to a far stronger but allied USA, it was a smooth transition with somewhat similar beliefs. The USSR in Gorbachev had a really great opportunity as well all things considered. Their ego may have been bruised but their villages were not pillaged. There is currently no viable replacement to the US so the US cannot move out of the way and fade gracefully like the UK with their pomp and dignity intact. That makes it more likely that the Empire remains in power longer and more likely that it becomes a bit ugly towards the end, whenever that may be. As far as I understand the roman empire went out like a blind sick dog. The people lost faith, the empire became scared and forceful against its own and that caused the people to revolt leading to centre of power shifting to the Byzantines.

I think I am the one who mentioned a downfall of the US but am in no way predicting that and dont want to steer the conversation that way either. Its too promising a subject to go all doomer macro on. Its a great topic but fraught with unpredictables. If your looking to skate to where the puck is going I think you have to envision massive productivity gains in some things and status quo in others. What those will be will likely to be the deciding factor in equity performance. Can we take oil for example. Everything about energy and oil screams boom, we use more of it, need more of it and simply put our economy IS energy consumed. If i pay a guy 5000 to build me a fence the money is not gone, he has it. The trees are gone but they are self replicating. The only thing that disappears is energy and time, his physical and the embedded energy in all parts of the project (screws, wood, driving to HD ect) To me the only thing in the world that matters is energy but it has been a graveyard for capital for a long time. Why? because of technology. If it wasn't for tech in drilling, oil could be 600 bucks a barrel easily and we would pay it because there is no alternative. So oil could be where the puck is going if we dont have any more big breakthroughs. I think oil is a status quo that will struggle to find another shale revolution and will be upside heavy over the next 20 years. You could probably put anything hard to do in this pile. Anything related to aging is probably a decent bet too. What the hell do 65 year olds do?, what do they need, what do they desire. Retail Apocalypse Now Redux! I think Amazon is going to consume the bulk of retail and may be the only company to ever really deliver trillions to its owners. It just does not make sense to shop elsewhere for most items. Costco avocados rock but Bezos brings me my Bubbly! Its every facet of retail that amazon will grind to dust inmo. I'm currently fixing up a truck that was left to me by may late father. I'm willing to shop everywhere and have been reading forums on diesels and interior restoration. I take delivery on everything from amazon. They have it, they have options, and it shows up withing 36 hours. I bought oem filters, oil pans, gaskets, fuel filters, fuel lines, seat covers, apple car play dash, rear view mirror, marker lights, ford spec spray paint, PB blaster and oils, Sanding disks and body work stuff, wires and fuses. Literally everything except for two giant batteries. 5k easily so far. AutoZone didn't get that spend, Canadian Tire didn't get that spend either. Youtube. Traditional education is dead without knowing it. Youtube is essentially how knowledge has been passed on for thousands of years. If big ED wants to be about babysitting our youth and networking that's fine but I'll stick to Youtube to actually learn. The human growth and productivity that will come out of this format alone is likely going to rival the advances seen with Gutenberg's press. Those would be my picks, Energy, aging, the death of retail at the hands of Amazon and the rapid growth of decentralized knowledge. Lot of winners and losers to dig through.

Great topic. I think to try and compare any time frame and extrapolate from it is unwise. The era of 2000-2012 had the tech bubble burst so stocks were damn high to begin with. Then 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq of which hopefully will never be repeated. And to layer it all on with the rise of China and its insatiable appetite for any commodity the obvious results were counties like Canada, Australia and EM doing well as the US sank and spent all its money invading other countries then propping up its companies during the 07-09 I remember well in late 2009 sitting in a giant hot tub in Whistler talking with a group of people. Several from Scandinavia, a few Aussies, one guy from the east and 6 or 7 Americans who were really smart and top of things. We all agreed that the world now belonged to Canada and China and the US was entering a downward spiral. Everyone was sure and everyone was wrong. Canada had this big swinging dick feeling in 2010, we held the G20, we held the Olympics and were kicking ass. Our Banks were rocking and some countries even considered using our currency, the beaver!, oops sorry the loonie. I think we even came close to empire building with a purchase of Turks and Caicos. Well it has been a slow, slippery slide down from basically that point. Our market has sucked, our banks look like shit, EM blew up, China looks like shit and its equities have fared even worse. We now have a dufus masquerading as prime minister and our status on the world stage is somewhere between flaming pile of Shit and rotten banana Republic. Is America about to go through the same thing? Who knows, probably nobody. I could see a great reckoning for America just as easily as I could see a great rebirth. I'm not overly hopeful but i'm humbled by usually being wrong when i'm sure of something.

Yeah DDM sounded great on the calls but I guess they just cant outmanage a lack of snow in their key markets. Boss plows is moving up as well as buyers plows. I think DD thought they had a captive market and now Toro and ASH are taking their market share. Western, fisher and snowex are still the most prevalent but its not a monopoly by any stretch. Long term I think Toro will continue to hurt them just from the scale and dealer network pressure.

Yeah this is pretty bang on. I would say that fiscal spending like roads and infrastructure, student loan forgiveness and plain old cheques in the mail affects asset prices less than QE so may be the better way to go if you wan to goose the economy. The trouble is if they continue to do it for too long the government ends up being the economy.

For starters my purchase was only like 110 shares so its not like i'm all in on PLOW. Ive owned and followed over the years and was looking for another beaten up dividend payer so tossed a few bucks at it. Douglas was a pure play in Plows but then bought Dejana the upfitter that had bad margins and changed the whole way the company was looked at. It went from seasonal cyclical but with good margins in the up years to lower overall margins but still cyclical. In my mind at these prices your paying a decent price for a commodity plus business. The steel blades are the commodity and the wiring harnesses and accessories are the plus and where you make money. Its no different than Toro or Federal signal and with some management improvements there is no reason they cant get their shit together.

Sorry for the thread derail but I think that all or most industrials have elevated margins right now that will shrink. By how much i'm not sure but i could see 20% lower. I can also envision a business environment where a lot of contractors are simply giving back the keys or getting liquidated. That said I think Wajax can continue in the range of $2.-4 eps. Hitachi is gaining ground and they are the distributor. A lot of niche parts run through them so I dont think they are likely to fade away. I learned about them from buying some parts and took a small position in the low 20's and have done a bit of research lately. Some parts are priced to insanity because of the rarity of them and I'm not sure if pissing off your customer is good business. Tennant has done this for years and customers hate them for it. I would say Wajax is definitely in that game and it may be a problem long term depending on management. I look at it like a infrastructure, mining and energy play at a reasonable valuation vs peers.

I have a much easier time finding value here though. Wajax, FFH, DOO, Doman, Equitable all under 10P/E The US equivalents are generally valued higher.

SWK, Douglas Dynamics and Newmont

And they complain about taxes lol. Most people receive far more than they will ever pay ( thank you Alberta!!) but bitch and complain about how high are taxes are. I doubt anyone has ever read their tax forms to see how little is actually paid unless you are making millions as an employee. One heart surgery is close to 100k apparently and most men end up getting one or something similar.

The country needs hardworking people who are not ashamed to get their hands dirty. Skills come fast when you not a lazy hungover pos or too "good" to do certain jobs. I was personally shoveling out commercial sump pits last night at 11pm in the rain while my net worth is probably a few million. F..k skills man, we need men and women who get shit done no matter what!! Not to toot my own horn but I got down in the pit, not my guys. I want to show them what it takes so next time they talk about get rich quick schemes and ask for a day off I can reference that hard work and a bit of luck is what's needed if they want to get out of Moms basement.

I think the latinos are the secret sauce of America. Its one of the reasons American is generally cleaner than Canada. ( landscapes, public bathrooms, rest stops, restaurants ect. Canada needs more of them badly. I grew up in a big employer household so had the opportunity to see all sorts of characters. I started work around 10 since I was desperate for cash and have been surrounded by "labour" for the past 30 years. Central Americans and Mexicans outwork, out think, live cleaner and do a better job in most tasks than their Canadian White, Italian, Indian, Southern South American and most European counterparts by far. Ill never forget on big crew jobs the Whities would all go out for fast food at lunch and then be lazy as hell for the next two hours. The Costa Ricans, Mexicans and Columbians would all bring their eggs, beans and rice in a thermos eat for 15 minutes and be right back at work. They got twice the work completed with better quality and wouldn't gripe about how bad their lives are like the others. And yes I am stereotyping but man after 30 years of the same bullshit and now dealing with Natural born Canadian youth I would love some more latinos in my life. Others are talking about crime and food line ect and I would probably say that is more of a structural issue as opposed to cultural. If you advertise free food, and welfare you will attract the people who want that. Just ask Canada with our insane social programs that kill motivation and productivity.

I'm not in the screamer camp but I certainly wouldn't say the economy is raging. Carloads are down, hiring is down, some retail is shit, some is strong but mostly we are in a middling stage where folks dont know if they should tighten up or let loose. A small drop in rates is all it will take to nudge people to relax a little and make them feel their futures are secure. So yeah if I was in charge Id drop rates and let inflation run a bit hot. 2% over trend. It gets people and money moving and makes depts easier to pay. It also allows for more production that would temper inflation!!! housing especially. Supply chain inflation is a lot different than monetary supply inflation. In 2021-2022 we had both. Now if we settle into just monetary inflation everyone is going to feel a lot better.

6 month update. This has been a pretty lucrative trade so far. Had to put one dog down (MO) Dis went to a better home and the rest have kicked the fleas and are perking up. (sorry) AAP up 53% Dis up 47% DG is up 51% C is up 56% plus a couple divs HD is roughly 26% MMM is up like %27 but with the spin i'm not sure BTI and MO have just sucked down 2% and up 4% with some decent divs in there The comp is VOO and SCHD that are up 19% and 14% since I sold a portion to fund this group of misery. The timing was lucky and even a fool would see that the best play still remains to just hold VOO and SCHD and go to work but fun is fun. I sold out of MO and have moved that 7500 into Chevron. Disney since it doesn't pay a DIV is gone and pushed into Starbucks I am also planning on selling the rest down to the original 7500 allocations and putting the proceeds into SWK (Stanley Black and decker) for 7500 and Newmont for 7500 with the last 2800 into PLOW Something about getting dividends really gets my heart fluttering and these pooches pay so all is well in the old RRSP

Capital allocation skills have a moving goal post from era to era. For instance buybacks are very popular and a like a big pair of tits to the "above average" investor, Its all we can focus on. Shrinking equity will have a time and a place and but doing it constantly is not going to land you in the time or the place every time you purchase shares with the shareholders money. The guys today who are the best capital allocators are the ones who are building. If Jeff Bezos doesn't go down as the best of all time I am simply perplexed. Using money to make more money should be the constant goalpost and nobody has spent more than JB at amazon to create more. I'm going to shout out Mike Pyle of Exchange income corporation for some pretty interesting acquisitions lately. He bagged a couple big fish at the start of covid but he may have swallowed the lure himself with BV glazing at a cycle high in curtain walls ( unlikely due to shit tons of housing and retrofits needed but the current gulch must be traversed). Lower rates need apply. Brad Jacobs is another who deserves honorable mention and while certainly not unknown nor camera shy he is still in the building stage of his CA Career. Buffett mapped it out to all of us. He may not have been the first but he was the most generous with his knowledge and now we can all think and hopefully act more efficiently with our money.

If a meltdown and radioactive leak made Canada's largest city uninhabitable the Canadian economy would simply deteriorate to the point of the country likely being broken up. Also scientifically I really hope you are right!

Thanks for posting. I always wondered what would happen in a major human cat event. Say if the Pickering nuclear plant went radioactive or something. In that instance the damage would be in the trillions and most likely end Canada as an entity. Who pays for that? And how.

Mako has made an offer on Goldsource mines in Guyana. I guess they are going to grow as Akiba mentioned. Gold is also at an all time high in USD. Amazing that Oil has not been able to keep up. I guess Oil is more affected by technology and improved production advancements.

Yes to this. Political lines seem to be drawn through education and career choice. I live in a very wealthy old money area. Nobody talks politics!!! We talk about children and grand children and business and hiking and coral reefs. To my west is a working class town that is conservative. This is your plumbers, dentists, farmers, manufacturing folks, mechanics and generally successful middle class people. We talk about the leafs. to my east you have a larger town that screams liberal. they basically hit you over the head with inclusion. How much are we spending on these gay pride electric buses anyway? We have over educated and underworked people who ride a desk all day and just want to get into your business. This is your professors, principals, social workers, unemployed and generally less useful people. In that statement I am not trying to be rude or hurtful. I’m trying to make a point that when shit hits the fan I want a good mechanic or farmer and not a middle manager for a school district. I think these people feel their use in the world is dwindling and take up causes just to feel something. Unfortunately that cause is interfering with my life either financially or in my children’s upbringing so we are left with a rift between us.

I have become pretty disturbed with how militant people are getting about this shit. granted the choices given are terrible and the US could use more candidates and parties but in the end we should all be pulling the the same direction. As a Canadian I have no dog in the fight but from my side of the fence things look pretty wacky down there. Canadians have a delusional party in power to cater to the delusional voter base and the leader is about as bad as it gets. That said we’re pretty chill on the us vs them thing. We’re all Canadians and we’re going to bitch and complain no matter what!!