Jaygo

As long as people do not expect significantly lower prices in the future or are expecting a long term loss of employment a deflationary bust is unlikely. What looks like is starting to happen is that major manufactures are slowing. Germany, China, SE asia ect This is because European and North American consumers are starting to say uncle, rates have done a lot of damage and most are still happy with their fluffy nest from the covid days. The thing to watch is services, we know trades are looking for work again but lets look for weakness in travel vs 2019, IT spend, and other cyclicals and that will tell is we need to run for cover or just ride through the bumps. I'm absolutely certain Canada is in a fairly deep recession right now. We will not see it in our numbers because we have a few gigantic construction projects going on that will lift the GDP plus its before Christmas and we know how to spend. It is more visible in the minute details. Having one less drink and app at dinner, choosing the cheaper sofa. I would love to see a 5 year graph of detailed credit card data to prove out what i expect. It all starts with small item decisions because in the back of your mind something doesn't feel right. Were spending too much on our groceries, mortgages and the boss has been in a bad mood lately lol. One thing is certain, if Westerners dont start spending the above manufacturing nations are going to take a royal economic shit kicking and that will then trickle down to us. The old adage was when America sneezes the whole world catches a cold. Well I believe that China is also there today. If China struggles the whole world is going to struggle. Look at Resource economies currencies for the proof of something dark brewing. The easy solution is for the interest rates to drop immediately to the proper 2% level that they belong at. The western consumer will then feel good and spend and that will help to bring prosperity back to the manufactures and resource economies, China can keep a happy populous by being employed and sheltered and wont have to start a war to distract from policy errors and we can all go back to doing what we do best.

Wow. Really great points here. It’s something I will have to noodle on a little more to fully understand

I agree that life is much better today but when the improvements slow down it feels like reverse. From 1900 - 1930 we went from shit ridden city streets rife with pestilence to inexpensive cars, penicillin, aircraft, electricity and a whole host of incredible things. I have a theory that is hard to quantify but I dont think our culture is producing truly individual people and I think that it will have negative long term consequences, maybe depression maybe suicide maybe just far lower productivity and inventiveness. The way mid twenty year old's act these days is truly baffling to me, they want everything, whine when they can have it then ask mom if the laundry is done. I'm all for tight families and my time with my parents was precious but i really cant understand why so many still live at home. The general thought is to save money but give me a break, how do you learn anything on your own. Why not rent a shit hole? work your ass off and get out of it to better digs. My theory is that the above is a result of a slow mental training of inadequacy and needing protection by having bylaws and rules for everything imaginable to keep us safe. My kids cant wear sleeveless shirts at school, Why? At every assembly we recognise some Indian tribe as the original owners of the land, That's f....cked? why? I did not, nor did my kids take anyone's land. My kids hockey team is not allowed to change in the change room. why does he go home in sweaty clothing? Just because of a one in 100,000 pervert? Why do I do 4 hours of safety training for some jobs that take me 10-15 minutes to complete. No wonder transmountain cost 30 billion. Imagine we tried to rebuild the CPR today. Today we have so many small rules that probably have good intentions but really make it kind of shitty when looking back to times with more freedoms. My dad in the 70's spent a year working on and off in a logging camp in northern Vancouver island. He made a bunch of cash then lived on the beach in Tofino for 3 months, it got too cold and he and two friends drove to grassy key in Florida and camped on the beach for the winter. Two summers ago we went to Tofino and as beautiful as it is the beaches are now controlled ( no fires, no camping, no parking, dont even dream of drinking a cold one) Sure, we dont want vagabonds everywhere but we are also kind of making life miserable for the young and stupid. This rules upon rules kind of mentality is doing damage. I just cant really explain it, I just feel it. So yes we live longer today but were hooked to the internet and afraid of everything, most are too poor to really live and the ones who cast aside the rules are considered weird and antisocial. I'm in the camp of no boom till we let people be individuals, make mistakes, get hurt, go broke and fight back swinging.

In the 20’s era the personal car and widespread electricity were just gaining serious traction In North America. That’s a tough comp for any era but it really did bring a sense of freedom and possibility. kind of a far cry from today. Yea our standard of living is better today than 100 years ago but our improvement steps are getting incrementally smaller. I think our main goal today should be to bring back some sense of pride in education, excellence and competition. We should squeeze out the rent seekers defined as everyone from welfare jobbers to uncompetitive monopolists. When the war years ended everyone was already geared to striving to be the best or else risk loosing the war. Today we are bloated, lazy and frankly trivial in our ambitions. When you look at the growth of Dubai or Shanghai and some other jurisdictions you can kind of see a boundlessness in it but that ain’t the west that’s for sure.

I think there is very good potential and pent up demand. I’d love to see some loosening of the nimbyism and bureaucracy since most people today are rule followers and just say wah, I can’t build that id never get a permit, wah. I think a guy like musk championing some diy engineering brilliance is also due. Where is todays Carol Shelby or Edison or Eiffel. Our trans mountain pipeline is almost done, the budget overruns and beurocratic nightmare has been legendary. I don’t think we can have a true boom of confidence and intelligence and economics without cutting some damn red tape.

Never say never. We are addicted to the internet at our fingertips imo not the actual device. for now apple is great, obviously. I Just don’t like having my 340 brk.b’s so damn leveraged to it if it does go the way of all other phones before.

I think it was a Ted pick or at least the idea. But WB was likely the one to put it on in size. Ideas are a dime a dozen, knowing when to go big is the secret sauce and they really hit a home run. doesn’t it seem crazy having 156b in apple vs a market cap of 800b. Its almost 20% of cap. Taxes ect will make the numbers imprecise but wowza. Take 50 billion and buy in the stock and we’d still have a gigantic stake in apple spread over 6% fewer BRK shares.

I’m not picking on apple specifically and sure as hell am not providing stock investing advice to Buffett. I’m jaygo on the internet, he’s a billionaire genius. im just thinking along the lines of the goat investor built this incredible conglomerate that has an all weather feel to it but 1/3 of it assets are publicly traded stocks. Why not take a little pressure off the next investment manager and take that down to 15 or 20% of assets and with the proceeds shrink the equity. it makes those future investment decisions slightly less critical and it will make the mistakes less damaging. If not I’d suspect that it ends up being markel like with a quasi index tracker over time because most are too afraid to work in buffetts shadow and ruin what he built.

I was hoping they would start winding down the publicly traded asset column to a more manageable level. Say 20% of total assets and with the proceeds shrink the share count a bit to make it easier on future managers to make investment deductions. having 150B in apple alone is one hell of a decision for management to make. if the future managers are very good they can grow it back with their own performance not relying on the goats picks from decades past.

Hey SD, I really appreciate you knowledge here so can you expand on this a bit. Are you implying that once that extra capacity is gone ( as in the pipe is filled and pumping) the market would cool off for WCSB The mid caps like WCP seem hungry to buy, rumours of a SU or CVE purchase of MEG. Seems like the whole return all money to shareholders and not grow thing has changed. Im pretty happy with what ive made in the Canadian names, some like wcp and cnq (the safer bets have doubles or triples since ) I am cautiously optimistic and would like to dabble in the TVE, BTE, SGY, SES of the world but hate to give it all back over a bit of greed at the top.

Not sure if the homelessness leads to drugs or they get there as a result of drugs and mental Illness but the majority are in a seriously unhealthy situation. Canada is cold enough to die for 2-3 months of the year so it’s not the same as posting up in San Diego or Phoenix but we certainly have tent cities. putting roofs over people who do not contribute to society is a social cost and one worth spending for many reasons. my issue is the powers that be making things so damn expensive and difficult for people who are contributing to get situated unless is it’s 600 sq ft 30 floors up. (They tax the development, they tax the sticks and bricks, they outlaw the nanny suite and basically just burden anyone who is not bringing in 300k plus. I’m not asking for favelas style development but maybe every building doesn’t need a public art installation budget ya know. Or in my fiends experience a demo permit of 18k for a house that strong fart could blow over. North America is the wealthiest most self dependent jurisdiction on the planet. I do not believe for a moment we can’t all live in a way we would like (within reason, pissing contest McMansions not included) I lived in a tower in Toronto for a few years, it was great, exciting and perfect for 21-24 but then we got married and moved to the country and had kids. Natural progression that is more and more being reserved for the very wealthy. Our economies are being held back in the exact opposite way as the post war baby boom and economic boom was being allowed to flourish.

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.