THC posted:

Why do your parents think giving him money will result in grandchildren? Home ownership is not a requirement for babies.

quote:

Markets More: Nouriel Roubini 2015 Forecasts 2016 Forecasts
ROUBINI: The Mother Of All Asset Bubbles Will Burst In 2016

AKIN OYEDELE

DEC. 5, 2014, 7:55 PM

In February 2013, NYU professor Nouriel Roubini made the call that US markets had entered the "mother of all asset bubbles."

With the rally in stocks that we've seen this year and a surge in high-yield debt issuance, Roubini said we're now at the midpoint of the bubble, in an interview with Yahoo Finance.

Next year may see more gains across markets, but the bubble, bigger than the one before the 2008 recession, could pop in 2016.

Because there is low growth, and low inflation in much of the world, there is liquidity that's leading to asset inflation, Roubini said:

quote:

"I think that this frothiness that we have seen in financial markets is likely to continue, from equities to credit to housing, and in a couple of years, most likely, this asset inflation is going to become asset frothiness and eventually an asset and a credit bubble and eventually any bubble ends up in a bust and a crash. I would say that valuations in many markets, whether it’s government bonds or credit, or real estate, or some equity markets, are already stretched. And they’re going to become more stretched as the real economy justifies the slow exit, and all this liquidity is going to go into more asset inflation. So two years down the line, we could have this shakeout … 2016 I would say."

His advice for investors is to be underweight US equities next year as stock valuations increase, particularly in the biotech, technology and social media sectors. Emerging markets that are heavy oil importers and will benefit from lower oil prices are attractive.

Here's the full interview.

ocrumsprug posted:

To answer your earlier question, people call stock market bubbles anytime the market hasn't crashed for more than two months. (Then those same people generally call 1930s global depression everytime it does correct.) ie. The allusion to 2008 being a market bubble pop, where it was something quite different that caused the GFC.

Now it is certainly true that there is a lot of excess capital rolling around yield seeking, but I am not sure you are seeing irrational exuberance, or shoe shine boys with stock tips quite yet. (These things are totally happening in Chinese markets OTOH.) What you are seeing in American markets is pricing in the anticipated economic recovery.

etalian posted:

lolling how people think more density and more housing units is somehow a panacea to the overpriced housing problem.

Cultural Imperial posted:

While no one in Canada has said this, I love the American statements that millennials have a duty to get into and remain in a pit of crippling debt because the economy depends on it.

Holy loving poo poo if someone told me that I'd happily punch them in the loving face and vote Bernie Sanders.

Rick Rickshaw posted:

I can't believe Harper didn't do this sooner. He's been rolling the dice that the bubble wouldn't pop before election day.

Albino Squirrel posted:

So if our petrodollar collapses does mnufacturing benefit from whatever the opposite of the Dutch Disease is? The Dutch Cure?

Furnaceface posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qKy9iK_jDc

Ikantski posted:

That makes no sense? Hydro One and OPG were government run or 100% government owned crown corporations until a month ago. It isn't uncommon for utility companies, public or private, to be compartmentalized. This is the Ontario problem in one paragraph


Our electricity system used to be designed by government employed experts, it's now designed by government employed politicians who've got to win a popularity contest every 4 or less years.

Ikantski posted:

Blaming the nebulous private sector lets the OLP off the hook too much. Maybe things would be better under full communism but it's a red herring. Every other province and state was also operating alongside a private sector for the last 25 years. It's not that bizarre that ONDP and OPC haven't been able to capitalize, you still see a lot of people saying it can't be that bad, their power bills haven't gone up much or quickly reframe any criticism as global warming denial from rich rural nimbys slash mike harris.

quote:

Add robots to the list of woes killing jobs in Canada’s oilpatch

Truck driver Craig Huzulak is unemployed after losing his job four times since December — the new normal in a Canadian oilpatch still reeling from a downturn.

Huzulak, 49, was working at a mine last year near Fort McMurray, Alberta, when crude prices plunged and work dried up. He lost two more positions in the following months and then had a job offer yanked at the end of June before he could even start.

In addition to the market rout, the father of two now worries about the self-driving trucks Suncor Energy Inc. is rolling out in its oilsands mining operations that will replace workers like him to save companies money.

“It’s really, really hard for heavy-equipment operators,” said Huzulak, who has driven trucks and worked on drilling rigs in Western Canada for 15 years. “There’s a lot more fear now that this might last longer.”

The burgeoning use of robots is one more reason there probably won’t be a quick jobs rebound in Canada’s energy industry as it grapples with cheap crude, tougher environmental controls, higher taxes and elevated costs.

The shelved projects and job reductions are helping to shore up the balance sheets of companies. They’re also a reflection of the upheaval weighing on producers’ stocks as they strive to keep projects competitive.

Jobs have disappeared as the U.S. crude benchmark tumbled 54 per cent from last year’s high to about US$50 a barrel. Unemployment doubled to 8.2 per cent in June from a year earlier in Alberta’s northern oilsands region. That may be just the beginning.

Canada will lose 185,000 positions due to the energy slump, according to projections from Petroleum Labour Market Information, a division of work-safety association Enform, in Calgary.

The industry had been a jobs machine, with more than 720,000 people directly and indirectly employed last year, according to the group. Employment in the country’s oil and gas, mining, forestry, fishing and quarrying industries increased 32 per cent in the last 15 years, compared with 22 per cent for jobs nationally, according to the federal statistics agency.

“The industry right now is simply thinking that we are in a new world,” said Greg Stringham, vice president of markets and oil sands at the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. The group last month cut its outlook for the nation’s crude output in 2030 by 17 per cent.

Suncor, which eliminated 1,200 positions this year, plans to save $200,000 annually for each of the 800 truck drivers it replaces with autonomous vehicles by 2020, Alister Cowan, chief financial officer, said at an investor conference in June. Husky Energy Inc. is saving money with a walking drilling rig, Chief Operating Officer Rob Peabody said at the conference. The rig doesn’t need workers to tow it from one spot to another.

The replacement of workers with machines is on top of slower growth, as companies scrap or delay projects.

“We think because this environment is unpredictable, that we can’t afford to be building five different projects simultaneously,” said Harbir Chhina, executive vice president of oilsands at Cenovus Energy Inc., which has cut about 800 positions this year. Instead, “we build two of them.”

North American energy companies, and their stocks, are in for another tough year-and-a-half of low oil prices, as global supplies are poised to increase faster than demand with a wave of production set to come from Iran, said Sam La Bell, an analyst at Veritas Investment Research in Toronto. U.S. producers also have an edge over the Canadians in attracting investment because their oil is generally lower cost, he said.

“Companies are going to be reluctant to hire people back quickly,” La Bell said. “The trend line for North America for any of these swing producers is pretty much that anyone outside of OPEC can’t make money below US$60 in any steady way.”

The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Energy Index is down about 19 per cent since the beginning of May, compared with a 14 per cent decline for U.S. peers on the S&P 500 Energy Index.

Production forecasts may still be too high for Canada, as the world shifts away from carbon-heavy fuels with vehicles increasingly running on electricity, said Michal Moore, an economist and the director of energy and environmental policy at the University of Calgary. He predicts only half the Canadian jobs lost in the rout will come back in a recovery, because of slower output growth, consolidation among companies and machines replacing workers.

“The industry in a lot of different ways has fundamentally shifted, and there are a lot of dinosaurs left out there who don’t see it and can’t imagine it isn’t going to all work out,” Moore said.

quote:

Falling loonie fueling foreign interest in Vancouver real estate, say industry experts
Stability of Canadian real estate and the favourable exchange rate make Vancouver an attractive investment
CBC News Posted: Jan 22, 2016 7:55 AM PT Last Updated: Jan 22, 2016 1:13 PM P

Don't expect the economic head winds slowing Canada's economy to have the same effect on Vancouver's real estate market.

That was the message from a panel of developers at the Urban Development Institute's sold out industry event yesterday.

Jon Stovell, the president of Reliance Properties told the crowd the free falling loonie has made the city even more enticing to foreign buyers, and there is no forecasting where it will end.

"Our market's gone down a rabbit hole, you know. Up is down, down is up and the clocks are running backward … We're seeing records surpassed every day," said Stovell.

Investors are coming from all around the world to take advantage of the falling exchange rates, says Stovell, who cites the example of a German billionaire who was recently in town looking to buy a downtown Vancouver tower.

"Anybody who's got a lot of money to invest is probably working with a fair degree of American dollars," he said.

Other members of the panel highlighted the relative stability of Canadian real estate values when compared with more volatile investments such as stocks.

But it is not just investors putting pressure on prices. Stovell says more and more people want to move to Vancouver to live or vacation.

"People from Alberta are moving back here, and Americans are seeing Vancouver again. so it's really in the spotlight right now."

All that extra attention is bound to keep pushing prices skyward, he says.

EvilJoven posted:

That was part of my point but i guess I didn't make that clear. Even smaller cities are being hosed by this consolidation of everything unless they're close enough to one of the handful of cities experiencing any kind of meaningful progress that people can stomach the hours long daily commute.

Lexicon posted:

Lol, what? I was with you right up until this last bit

Baronjutter posted:

Well it's a matter of "cost to society" really. If rural living required massive subsidies (it does to an extent) then it's not really in society's best interests to subsidize them to such a degree. But trying to min/max society doesn't work either, specially when your "dump stat" is just the entire working class.

I think a whole spectrum of types of living from rural to big city should be possible, but within reason. We also need to re-look at these types of living to minimize their social and upkeep costs. Rural living doesn't have to be totally car/truck dependent and devoid of any sort of culture or human interaction. A small town can actually be a walkable village, there are hundreds of very cozy villages and small towns in europe for instance. Like the "strong towns" guy is always going on about the classic main-street small town model. That's perfectly reasonable living and those types of towns can absolutely still have economies when their cores haven't been totally abandoned after some big-box stores open up juuuust outside the city limits.

Once again, going back to small towns in europe, they are often totally different than small towns here. Despite being small, they're still dense since they were built pre-automobile. So instead of just a vague geographic area with a bunch of random houses and business spread randomly over the countryside with the only planning seeming to be "keep buildings as far apart as possible" they'll be a pleasant cluster of buildings around a town square or high street of row buildings with shops on the bottom and offices/apartments above, then a ring of classic single family houses but still with everyone within a short walk to the centre, and then from there actual farms and rural estates and such. Despite being tiny these small towns and villages usually have a bus route or two or even a train station. You can hop on the train or bus and be in a much larger city in a short time, so they are still quite connected with the rest of society.

Lexicon posted:

Rime posted:

Lack of any coherent civil planning is most certainly a huge blow to how towns have developed in BC. If you look at the older towns established prior to 1900, especially in the south-central interior (Nelson, Castlegar, etc), you'll see that they all followed the "old world" model of civic planning that NZ has managed to stick with. A dense commercial core with offices / apartments on the upper floors, and residential surrounding it. For towns that managed to hold a sustainable population level this worked, and continues to work fantastically.

Jumpingmanjim posted:

The homeequicaust

Rime posted:

I put some thought into things and hit upon a way to reverse rural decline and ease the pressure on cities:

Offer massive, film & gaming industry level, tax subsidies for firms which allow employees to telecommute. If we can subsidize companies over 50% of their employee salaries just to employ people in an industry , why not offer something similar to encourage growth in rural areas? I know tons of white collar workers who would rather be on the island or the Kootenays rather than a lovely tenement in the West End


Most corporations would never take advantage of it, because for some reason offices in Canada have a plantation mentality (I've been told straight up "if I can't see you in the office, it means you aren't working.") but it's worth a shot.

cowofwar posted:

I'm confused as to why the government should subsidize rural towns when they are completely useless and a drain on resources. We don't need to subsidize highways and other infrastructure for the cottages of rich people.

Lexicon posted:

Take your statement to its logical extreme, and we're collectively obliged to fund underwater colonies and towns at the tops of mountains. At a certain point, why should we fund this environmentally and financially wasteful style of living?

Subjunctive posted:

If even 10% of Canada's towns under 50K people are dominated by agriculture, I'll donate $100 to the charity of your choice.

I will find 500 other people who want to live on the edge of some random northern lake. We will move there. You will build and maintain roads, water, police and fire coverage, medical facilities, schools, banks, and phone access. Let me know when you're ready.

Subjunctive posted:

You...are not right.

I'm not angry at people on welfare, though. I just don't think it's a fundamental right to live wherever you want, and that like other luxuries you should pick up the tab for it as the person who benefits. I also don't think we should subsidize inground pools or mortgages or private car ownership or film production.

Subjunctive posted:

There may not be logic to it! I lived in semi-rural Ontario when I was growing up, and have many friends and relations who live in small towns or unincorporated areas. I enjoy visiting them, it is nice out there. I do not begrudge them any happiness, and I don't feel threatened by their successes. I think it is perfectly reasonable and moral to want to live in a small town, or to want a large lot for a garden, or a pool. I don't think we should discourage those practices. We do as a society have the money to buy people pools, but for whatever reason I don't think of "having a pool" as being part of the social contract they way "have healthcare" or "avoid starving" are. I also don't think "I would rather live in neighbourhood A than neighbourhood B" is part of the social contract. Maybe I'm merely not ambitious enough, and should be looking much more broadly at quality of life choices that we can help each other with. Decentralized living also has resource and environmental impact that can't be really wiped out by the tax base, unfortunately. Nor can we necessarily spend our way out of doctor shortages.

I think the German thing is fine, but I'm ok with regulation of provision of essential things like housing. I think the best part of the article is the rent laws, honestly. We made a big mistake when we stopped seeing a building as housing and started seeing it as an investment you sleep in. I don't mind money being spent on the public service either; there are inefficiencies, but compared to the military or taxing capital gains at a lower rate than income (I mean Jesus), they're no big deal.

I'm on the board of a public college, and I spent years working for a non profit. I believe in the commons. I don't think it's right to treat "live in small town" as a special class of preference when it comes to housing, is all. By all means let's agree that we're going to share the costs of each other's housing preferences, with our eyes open; I don't think that's the general agreement among Canadians.

cowofwar posted:

Pretty certain most farming is done on industrial and large factory farms. The romanticized idea of the family farm is all but a memory.

Also I'm not sure what a pre-automobile centric small town would be other than the exact same thing but with horses and wagons. It's not like people used to live in high density wooden condos before the invention of the internal combustion engine.

Dreylad posted:

If we want to take the historical perspective, rural Canada subsidized the growth of our urban and suburban communities for... well decades if not over a century. Farmers were taxed to hell so we could build road and services for the suburban developments, who hold the first place prize for "most unsustainable form of living in Canada."

There has been a slow but steady depopulation of rural Canada, so everyone who despises rural living will get their wish in the end, anyway. Just be patient.