We need the doctors; My buddies who work in HR are telling me it’s a nightmare to hire tech talent since Trudeau started flooding the market with cheap imported labour. Every job ad gets hundreds of applications, including from international students looking for full-time work…
Whathisname’s Britain
Where the foxes caper unmolested, the government packs your school lunch and the British remember what they used before candles.
People are being encouraged to make sure they have emergency supplies at home to help them cope in the event of extended power cut
People must buy battery-powered radios, torches and candles to boost their “personal resilience” in the event of a national crisis wiping out digital network or power supplies, the government has said.
Oliver Dowden, the deputy prime minister, has given the first of what will be an annual update to MPs on the government’s national risk and resilience strategy.
Guidance to be issued next year will help people to prepare for different emergencies.
He said that members of the public needed to be more “personally resilient” as he suggested they have become too reliant on devices powered by the internet.
A new “resilience website” will contain advice on how people can ensure they are prepared for being left without power for the gadgets they rely on.
Gradually, Then Suddenly
As a once-loyal client, I can attest to the fact that Royal Bank customer service has gone to shit, and recent interactions at TD even worse.
With many street-facing branch staff both communicatively handicapped (English as a recent language), limited in their authorities, and apparently without access to more capable supervisor support — what reason is there to believe such a system breeds competency at higher corporate levels?
Three of Canada’s biggest lenders posted quarterly earnings on Thursday, and as was the case at Scotiabank earlier in the week, they’re all putting a lot more money aside to cover loans that might go bad.
Royal Bank, TD Bank and CIBC revealed their financial results to investors before stock markets opened on Thursday, and while all three remain very profitable, they all showed a sharp uptick in the amount of money they’re setting aside to cover bad loans, a closely watched banking metric known as provisions for credit losses.
At Royal Bank, Canada’s biggest lender set aside $720 million to cover loans that either aren’t currently being paid back as planned, or the bank is worried might soon be. That figure is up by 89 per cent from $381 million a year ago.
At TD, the bank set aside $878 million in provisions, an increase of 42 per cent from $617 million this time last year.
But I’m just the customer. If you work on the front lines at a financial institution, tell me what you know.
The Doctor Will Kill You Now
Lies, damned lies and Statistics Canada.
Going Bwoke
Investments in trendy ‘ESG’ assets collapsed by $5 trillion in just two years…
In its biannual assessment, the Global Sustainable Investment Alliance (GSIA) said on Wednesday that investors had $30.3 trillion in sustainable assets in 2022, down from $35.3 trillion in 2020.
In the US, where Republicans have railed against ESG funds, which push for environmental, social, and governance benefits, such assets plunged from more than $17 trillion to just $8.4 trillion over the same period.
[…]A recent Bloomberg survey showed that investors expect the downturn to continue into 2024, with the negative sentiment extending to Tesla and other electric carmakers.
‘Sustainable bonds make for bad investments when they actually meet the radical left’s definition of sustainable, and when they don’t, Wall Street greenwashes them to justify the higher fees they charge for selling them,’ added Hild.
‘It’s a scam on investors either way.’
Related: Yesterday, America First Legal (AFL), together with co-counsel Boyden Gray PLLC and Lawson Huck Gonzalez PLLC, filed an amended complaint in its lawsuit against Target Corporation and its Board of Directors. The lawsuit is brought on behalf of a group of shareholders for Target’s misleading representations about its Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) mandates that betrayed Target’s customers and shareholders and caused investors to lose billions of dollars.
Funny Money
You wouldn’t know this from the press release.
Bank of Canada- Digital Canadian Dollar Public Consultation Report
Since when is “somewhat important” the same as “important”?
The Children Are Our Future
And that’s why I’ve learned how to make pemmican.
This sense of demoralized ennui and bitter cynicism was created on purpose, by battalions of Marxist educators and popular culture. They worked hard to sever the natural bonds between young people and their family, culture, and nation, creating a generation of angry orphans.
The result of this educational program was not a generation of proud free thinkers, but rather a sea of despondent youth who are easily recruited to fanatical causes because they were taught to distrust traditions, family, capitalist freedom, and even humanity itself.
We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars
CNBC: Ford to scale back plans for $3.5 billion Michigan battery plant as EV demand disappoints, labor costs rise
Ford said Tuesday that it is cutting production capacity by roughly 43% to 20 gigawatt hours per year and reducing expected employment from 2,500 jobs to 1,700 jobs. The company declined to disclose how much less it would invest in the plant. Based on the reduced capacity, it would still be about a $2 billion investment.
The decision adds to a recent retreat from EVs by automakers globally. Demand for the vehicles is lower than expected due to higher costs and challenges with supply chains and battery technologies, among other issues.
Reductions at the Marshall, Michigan plant are part of Ford’s plans announced last month to cut or delay about $12 billion in previously announced EV investments. The company will also postpone construction of another electric vehicle battery plant in Kentucky.
Riding Mass Transit Is Like Inviting 30 Random Hitchhikers Into Your Car
Sheila Gunn Reid and videographer Kian Simone ride the rails aboard the ‘Dope Train’, the crime ridden light rail transit system in Edmonton, Alberta, where the local government has imposed a media blackout in an attempt to cover up the tragedy unfolding on trains and in transit stations.
‘In a cold winter, the pump can howl like a small jet engine’
You’ll eat bugs, own nothing, wear earmuffs and be happy.
Getting What They Voted For
“a conspiracy of cartographers.”
This is an extraordinary piece of writing: the real dangers of the virtual life
trusting that which you cannot see but failing to trust that which is right in front of you is a kind of madness. and this is what “globalism” has on offer and why it’s so vapid and harmful. in the end, imminence is all.
joy and meaning come from that which you experience directly. the answer is always “roll up your sleeves, get dirty, touch stuff, make things, explore, find, interact tangibly.” the real risk of the virtual world is that you inhabit nothing corporeal, just a vapor of ideas and a memory of smoke. (said the internet cat, basking in irony)
A hint of recession
As the after-shocks of the pandemic lockdowns continue to be felt and various wars drag on, it’s not surprising to hear that the marginal consumer is cutting back. What’s really notable is that historically Canadian Tire has often been touted as a recession-proof company. Maybe not anymore.
Consumer weakness spilled into full view in Canadian Tire Corp.’s third quarter as its customers curbed spending on non-essential items, pushing comparable sales down 1.6 per cent relative to the previous year.
Spin Master Corp., a Toronto-based toymaker that sells brands such as Paw Patrol and Bakugan, reported a 29 per cent decline in gross sales of toy products in Canada in the first nine months of the year, compared with a 20 per cent drop in the U.S.
Zombie apocalypse
The only upside I can see in this story is that most governments in the world are in even worse financial shape than the U.S. federal government. But that will just delay the inevitable.
What should we call a government that must borrow $1T to pay interest on existing debt & another $1T to cover operating deficit?
(FYI – companies in such situation are called "Zombies") https://t.co/Iw3o7g63mO
— Simon Mikhailovich (@S_Mikhailovich) November 7, 2023
You Will Eat At Home and be Happy
Toronto Star- Canadian restaurants struggle to survive as survey finds diners turning away from skyrocketing menu prices
A staggering 51 per cent of restaurants in Canada are operating at a loss, compared to only 12 per cent before the pandemic, according to Restaurants Canada. And one of the main reasons may be found in a new report released Tuesday by Dalhousie University showing Canadians tightening their belts and not dining out altogether due to shrinking portions and ballooning menu prices.
And more than 68 per cent of Canadians noted a reduction in portion sizes at restaurants, a phenomenon known as “shrinkflation,” with 77 per cent now opting for more affordable dining establishments due to price hikes.
Don’t Worry, It’s Transitory
I have two customers who own major trucking companies–one on the east coast and one on the west coast. I’m sure you’d recognize their names.
They both told me last week they can’t fill their trucks with freight and they are not even making enough money to pay for the fuel. They say freight volume is down over 50%.
Consumer spending has fallen off a cliff. We are headed for some trouble.
Via email, from a contact in the industry;
It’s as bad or worse than 2008.
The market overall is horrible. Freight volumes have plummeted, especially since May and they haven’t come back.
LoadLink is an online system trucking companies and brokers pay for to post extra loads they don’t can’t move themselves, or look for loads when they need one. Freight brokers are also on there. When I post a load on there within 3 minutes my phone and email lights up. I posted a load the other day and one caller wanted to run a truck 1200 miles empty from Texas – usually a very busy area – to get it because his truck had sat a week already.
Vancouver has always been the busiest area for trucks in Western Canada. Normally on any given day there will be 200 loads on LoadLink looking for a truck to move it to the prairies. This past summer there weren’t any loads available at times and as high as 2,200 load postings of open deck trucks looking for loads to the prairies. It has since stabilized somewhat since then, but still far from good.
The bankruptcies and layoffs are everyday. Freightwaves.com covers them well. They are out pacing 2008. Freightwaves.com is the best source to get a pulse on the industry.
All my customers are cutting back and laying off. Caterpillar’s orders are down so shipments are down. Everyone is slow.
Trucking is always the first into and the first out of a recession and right now we are in a horrible recession. There is no end in site. In past recessions there would still be upticks for the summer construction boom; the sawmills would be scrambling to find trucks, steel I-beams, construction equipment moving. etc. This year the mill in Meadow Lake had a waiting list of 71 carriers – all with multiple trucks – looking for loads. One sawmill customer of mine in BC closed down. The economy is collapsing.
Stateside: “It isn’t just in the trucking world. It is also in air freight and in the rail industries.”
Obliterating the competition
Imagine the public outcry, and justifiably so, if boxing associations dispensed with weight categories and let heavyweights literally smash their way to the top. But when it comes to trans-athletes competing in womens’ Jiu-Jitsu, the gods of gender identity demand sacrifices.
“I hadn’t been notified,” Wilk said. “The only thing that brought it to my attention was my teammates. They kept asking me, ‘Are you fighting a man?’ and I was honestly too focused on coaching the rest of the crew to really pay attention to my opponent.”
“The fact of the matter is that he had a man’s strength,” Alexander said. “I train with men and women and the difference is massive. After my match with Cordelia, I sat mat-side and cried as my teammates massaged out my cramping forearms.”
Don’t Worry, It’s Transitory
Target (TGT.N) is seeing shoppers trim spending even on groceries as household budgets are stretched due to higher prices and borrowing costs, the U.S. big-box retailer’s CEO Brian Cornell said in an interview aired on CNBC on Thursday.
“But even in food and beverage categories, over the last few quarters, the units, the number of items they’re buying, has been declining,” Cornell told CNBC.
Related – The trend for the Google search “give car back” is skyrocketing.
We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans
“The future is batteries”, they said. “We’re going to store the wind in ginormous batteries the size of Pluto“.
Mining remains a deeply divisive industry, as manifested by the explosion of popular rage that’s paralyzed Panama in recent weeks.
After spending the best part of a decade and more than $10 billion building one of the world’s biggest copper mines, First Quantum Minerals Ltd. now finds the project hanging in the balance.
The country’s president this weekend caved to pressure and agreed to hold a referendum on its future, sending the Canadian company’s stock plunging the most on record.
While Panama’s electoral court has since offered a lifeline, saying such a vote can’t proceed without congress first passing legislation, prospects for development look deeply uncertain.
The drama in Panama highlights a growing global trend. Many people don’t want new mines built, judging the environmental impact to be too great despite the boost to jobs and local coffers.
Yet mining has never been more important. It’s impossible for economies to decarbonize without hundreds of millions more tons of metals such as copper, nickel and lithium being pulled from the earth.
In the past decade, the industry has transformed the way it engages with those on the receiving end of massive mining upheaval. Aware of the need to have a social license to operate, companies have gone to great lengths to win over community leaders and politicians.
But they still often fail to garner wider public support. Some of the world’s most crucial new mines are currently stuck in limbo in the face of local opposition.
The development of Europe’s biggest lithium deposit was brought to a sudden halt last year after thousands of protesters took to the streets of Belgrade, Serbia. In the US, what would be the country’s largest copper mine has been stalled for years.
Give the people more stuff. Ban all the things.
We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans
The arc of the renewable universe is long, but it bends toward bankruptcy.
Wind companies losing billions, prompting fears a federal bailout could be coming […]
Mounting financial losses in the wind industry over the last few months are taking a toll on the Biden administration’s clean energy drive. Despite the billions in subsidies that came down the pipeline in 2022 before the Inflation Reduction gave away even more money, energy experts don’t expect that the need for more money will deter the nationwide momentum to build more wind and solar farms.
Writing in his “Energy Absurdity” Substack, David Blackmon, an energy analyst with over 40 years of experience in the oil and gas industry, said that the lobbying for more renewable energy dollars is likely near.
“Everyone should prepare themselves to see an effort in Washington, DC to allocate billions more dollars to bail out Big Offshore Wind developers soon,” Blackmon wrote.
Since the Obama administration, the federal government has been pouring billions into projects to meet environmental goals, only to have the companies go bankrupt.
In 2009, the Obama administration co-signed $535 million in loans to solar panel manufacturing startup Solyndra. Two years later, the company went bankrupt, laying off 1,100 workers.