eXXon posted:

Yes the commodity slump will rebalance the economy by shrinking the commodity sector, very astute observation from the 3 people it took to write that Globe article.

If years of 1.5% interest rates and record low corporate taxes didn't convince Canadian companies to invest their cash then maybe a recession will! Oh and somehow Ontario's manufacturing sector will come back solely because of a dropping dollar. I mean I hope so but I would not bet any money on that outcome.

eXXon posted:

Yes the commodity slump will rebalance the economy by shrinking the commodity sector, very astute observation from the 3 people it took to write that Globe article.

If years of 1.5% interest rates and record low corporate taxes didn't convince Canadian companies to invest their cash then maybe a recession will! Oh and somehow Ontario's manufacturing sector will come back solely because of a dropping dollar. I mean I hope so but I would not bet any money on that outcome.

Whiskey Sours posted:

Am I wrong in thinking that it will slightly benefit Ontario and Quebec at the expense of completely loving Alberta?

HookShot posted:

Chilliwack is where rural starts thank you very much

etalian posted:

more like abbots can't afford Vancouver

Cultural Imperial posted:

My therapist tells me that I need to be a more positive, uplifting person. Here's an uplifting, positive post:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/arvindbhai-bakorbhai-patel-financial-planner-charged-in-ponzi-scheme-1.2945445


You'd think credit union employees would be able to spot an illegal financial scam from a mile a way.

triplexpac posted:

Another somewhat unrelated anecdote, but this made me laugh


http://www.torontolife.com/informer/features/2015/02/04/gthl-puckheads/

Cultural Imperial posted:

Lol 200$ hockey sticks. What the gently caress is it made of? Pre crash crude oil?

Whiskey Sours posted:

Am I wrong in thinking that it will slightly benefit Ontario and Quebec at the expense of completely loving Alberta?

Kalenn Istarion posted:

Carbon fibre constructed with the kind of crystal structure that means you need to buy another $200 stick every couple months.

JawKnee posted:

A trap for idiots who are too good for wood

JawKnee posted:

A trap for idiots who are too good for wood

CBC posted:

Canada added 35,400 jobs in January, far surpassing the slight gain that economists had been expecting.

Statistics Canada said Friday that most of the jobs were part time. But the strong figure was enough to tick the jobless rate down by one-tenth of a percentage point, to 6.6 per cent.

MAP: Unemployment rates across Canada

Economists polled by Bloomberg had been expecting 5,000 new jobs, and the jobless rate to stay the same at 6.7.

The economy added almost 50,000 part-time jobs in the month, but that was partly offset by a loss of more than 11,000 full-time jobs.

By province, the jobs figures went up in Quebec, Alberta, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. At the same time, there was a decline in Saskatchewan.

Despite an ongoing oil patch slowdown, Alberta added 14,000 jobs during the month, the data agency said. That means the province has added 67,000 new jobs in the past year, good enough to maintain its position as the fastest growing province.
Cautious optimism

Although the headline figure was undeniably a pleasant surprise, some economists muted their optimism.

"The details of the report are quite weak and the gains are due entirely to part-time job gains," Scotiabank noted. "Given the volatility and frequent revisions we’ve seen lately in Canadian jobs data releases, we caution against drawing too many conclusions on this one data point just yet."

TD Bank's Leslie Preston had another reason for pessimism in the data.

The private sector, the traditional engine of economic growth, added only about 1,000 jobs, while the public sector actually shrank by almost 7,000 people.

"The bulk of the job gains were in self-employment, which rose 41,000 jobs," she said.

Economists are often critical of self-employment, because those jobs don't always last — in many cases it's a job class that people go into after other plans have fallen through, but they'd prefer full-time work for someone else.

quote:

Employers in the U.S. added more jobs than forecast in January, capping the biggest three-month gain in 17 years, and workers’ earnings jumped.
The 257,000 advance in payrolls last month followed a 329,000 gain in December that was bigger than previously reported, figures from the Labor Department showed Friday in Washington. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a 228,000 increase. The unemployment rate climbed to 5.7 percent as the improving job market lured more Americans into the labor force.

quote:

Sustained job growth will probably help assure Federal Reserve policy makers that the expansion is well-rooted and can withstand an increase in interest rates later this year.

quote:

Inflation “is anticipated to decline further in the near term,” the Federal Open Market Committee said in a Jan. 28 statement. Meanwhile, “labor market conditions have improved further, with strong job gains and a lower unemployment rate.”
Economists surveyed by Bloomberg from Jan. 9 to Jan. 14 projected the economy will add 230,000 jobs per month this year, with an average unemployment rate of 5.4 percent.

quote:

Yikes: Last 12 months, Ontario population +112,800, Labour Force +1,700, F/T Employed: -19,100: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/150206/t150206a003-eng.htm

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/563723470891012096

Cultural Imperial posted:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-06/payrolls-in-u-s-increase-more-than-forecast-along-with-wages




The Fed wants to raise interest rates.

This could be bad for the BoC because it will be more difficult to spur foreign investment with t-bills and various other us bonds going up in value, thus, Poloz's hands will be tied in terms of cutting the overnight rate again.

Cultural Imperial posted:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-06/payrolls-in-u-s-increase-more-than-forecast-along-with-wages




The Fed wants to raise interest rates.

This could be bad for the BoC because it will be more difficult to spur foreign investment with t-bills and various other us bonds going up in value, thus, Poloz's hands will be tied in terms of cutting the overnight rate again.

Cultural Imperial posted:

Lead out in cuffs posted:

How many of those 100k extra people in Ontario are jobless tar sands workers returning home?

Lead out in cuffs posted:

How many of those 100k extra people in Ontario are jobless tar sands workers returning home?

Cultural Imperial posted:

http://imgur.com/Q21X8U1

loving lol. gently caress prince George

quote:

The economist realtors love to hate: David Madani stands by 2011 prediction of Canadian housing ‘day of reckoning’

David Madani is sticking to his guns, almost four years to the day that one of the most quoted bears on the housing market predicted as much as a 25% decline in prices.

“There will be a day of reckoning,” said the Canada economist of Capital Economics in an interview. Mr. Madani bills himself as independent of the mortgage and real estate industries and able to offer a clear view of the housing market. “Enjoy it while it lasts, that’s my response. Tell these real estate people just because it hasn’t happened, doesn’t mean it won’t.”

Phil Soper, chief executive of Royal LePage Real Estate Services Inc., can’t help but chuckle at the forecast now.

“They are a British firm seeking headlines for the last four years with the same end of the world prediction,” said Mr. Soper, adding prices will have to drop 45% for Capital Economics to be right once you factor in the 20% in price gains that have materialized since the 2011 call.

Mr. Madani is undeterred and waded back into the debate again Wednesday with a new economic note suggesting low-interest rates wouldn’t prevent a housing sales slump and diving prices, and even cautioned it could make his eventual doomsday scenario worse than he thought.“While lower mortgage rates will help support home sales,” he said, referring to a few key regions, “we fear this will only result in greater imbalances in terms of housing overvaluation, household debt and overbuilding.”

This year will see a mere 2% decline in prices but over the long term he says nothing has changed from his original prediction that prices would fall by 25% – other than that call was made in 2011.

“It doesn’t make it wrong,” says Mr. Madani about the forecast. “All the conditions are still the same. We never put a specific timeline on it because we know it’s not a precise science trying to forecast this.”

He notes while people who bought in 2011 have experienced price appreciation in many markets, some who bought in the last year could find themselves under water very quickly in a major price correction. In a negative equity situation, those people might not even be able to renew their mortgages.

His original forecast said the eventual collapse of houses prices could even cripple the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., the Crown corporation that backs mortgages for consumers with less than a 20% downpayment in the event of default.“A sharp decline in house prices could lead to losses of around $10 billion, which would be enough to wipe out all of the CMHC equity,” he wrote in that original CMHC report.

Mr. Madani does say some things he didn’t anticipate have happened over the last four years which have propped up the housing market.

“First, market bond yields and mortgage rates declined. We expected these rates to rise moderately. Second, we thought tighter government regulatory measures on top of rising mortgage rates would more than cool the housing market. As it turns out, lower mortgage rates have effectively offset stricter mortgage rules. There has been no cooling effect in Vancouver and Toronto. Third, crude oil prices remained higher for longer than expected. We expected oil prices to decline moderately,” says the economist.

Peter J. Thompson/National Post
Peter J. Thompson/National PostDavid Madani of Capital Economics is one of the few bears among Canada's top economists.
He adds oil prices are now the biggest threat to housing and not just in Alberta. “I don’t think other provinces will be spared completely. As the economic fallout from low oil prices spreads this year, weakness in the economy will hit housing markets more generally,” says Mr. Madani

So why stick to the forecast, in the face of criticism that is continually levelled against him by the real estate sector, many of whom want to know if he actually owns a home?

“We are sticking with this view because the fundamental analysis hasn’t changed: severe overvaluation, high household debt and overbuilding. If anything, the situation has become worse. So, the eventual housing correction could prove in the end to be somewhat deeper and more prolonged than we had originally feared,” he says.

A report from The McKinsey Global Institute Thursday pointed to Canadian consumer debt as unsustainable. Statistics Canada said debt reached a record 162.6% of disposable household income in the third quarter

As for the realtors who spit his name out, he says he gets it. “In every country that we make these calls, the real estate people are upset. That’s their business to sell homes,” says Mr. Madani, who is a little coy about whether he is actually a homeowner.

“Have I been a homeowner? Yeah. I don’t know why it’s relevant.”

Monaghan posted:

Because now most employees are salaried and workplaces can fully expect you to work overtime and be loving grateful for it.

Salon did an article a couple of years ago about this, it's pretty good:

http://www.salon.com/2012/03/14/bring_back_the_40_hour_work_week/

Coxswain Balls posted:

Is it actually a thing where if you're salaried you can legally be dicked out of overtime, or is it lovely employers being lovely? I have a salaried position, but we get compensated for overtime with your choice of OT pay or banked vacation time, take your pick. At my workplace if you stay even five minutes over, you're expected to notify our scheduling people to make sure it's all on the books.

Coxswain Balls posted:

Is it actually a thing where if you're salaried you can legally be dicked out of overtime, or is it lovely employers being lovely? I have a salaried position, but we get compensated for overtime with your choice of OT pay or banked vacation time, take your pick. At my workplace if you stay even five minutes over, you're expected to notify our scheduling people to make sure it's all on the books.

Pieces posted:

poached this from elsewhere... but I think its relevant

Lead out in cuffs posted:

Not legally (unless you're a "manager"), at least in BC.

People really don't have to work 12-hour days without claiming overtime. Somehow they do anyway.

Saltin posted:

You sound unionized.

Coxswain Balls posted:

Nope. I'm in a Costco-type situation where my employer seems to understand that having a healthy working environment, work/life balance and not treating your workers like poo poo leads to productive employees. Not that I don't realize things could change at a moment's notice with a switch in management, mind you.

misguided rage posted:

Unfortunately a ton of white collar positions are exempt from the Act: http://www.labour.gov.bc.ca/esb/igm/esr-part-7/esr-s31.htm