Category: It’s Probably Nothing

A Challenging Collapse

Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing 4 Comments

I seem to recall that the housing bust of 2008 lasted a lot longer than a couple of months. The company I used to work for once offered farm machinery financing at 3 to 4 percent interest. Now it’s over 7 percent. That’s got to be causing someone to say “I’ll wait”.

“The housing market was not in a robust place to start off with. And then with mortgage rates moving up the way they have, I think we’re going to see a challenging couple months ahead,” Hale told Yahoo Finance.

Mortgage rates rose sharply in September, starting the month well below 7% and ending around 7.5%.

 

We Are All Tim Hortons Now

Gradually Then Suddenly Great Reset More Pavilions At Folkfest New Governor 63 Comments

Forget the US, at this point even a Russian invasion sounds pretty good.

As almost 300 mostly unidentified Canadians attend a trade mission in Mumbai, the High Commissioner of India to Canada predicts that this country will need 15 million immigrants to meet the workforce needs of a growing economy in the next 10 years.

“This is a new Canada and we are anticipating that things will happen fast. And Prime Minister (Mark) Carney, given his background as the governor of two banks, Bank of Canada, Bank of England, as well as Brookfield, his experience with investment with the economy, there is a lot of trust that he will be able to deliver on a lot of the things,” Dinesh Patnaik said in an interview on CPAC.

New country, incoming: PM Carney says in an interview with New York Times that his government will resume growing the population through mass immigration because that is “the nature of Canada”.

Changing Channels

Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing Media 11 Comments

While we still have a Netflix subscription, that used to come without ads. Now you have to pay extra for that and it’s no shock that viewers are turning away. Personally, I find an ad free subscription to YouTube to be superior value for money. The only annoying thing is that many YouTubers are now inserting lengthy product endorsements into their programs. But at least you can just hit the fast forward button.

Last month, HSBC and Wells Fargo both downgraded Netflix over engagement – with HSBC’s Mohammed Khallouf moving the stock to Hold from Buy and cut his price target to $76 from $96, citing YouTube’s growing living-room presence and Netflix’s falling share of U.S. TV time. Wells Fargo’s Steve Cahall cut his rating to Underweight from Equal Weight and his target to $57 from $80, citing “worrying” engagement trends.

Elbows Flapping

Gradually Then Suddenly New Governor 31 Comments

Bloomberg;

Canada’s economy shed a net 68,300 jobs in September and the unemployment rate edged up, data showed on Friday, erasing all the employment gains recorded earlier this year.

The unexpected drop follows a decline of 41,700 jobs in August, Statistics Canada said. The unemployment level in September inched up to 6.5 per cent from 6.4 per cent in August.

September was the first full month after a new round of U.S. tariffs took effect against Canada. However, the largest job losses were in the public sector, particularly health care, social assistance and education, as the government cut international student permits.

Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast an increase of 9,200 jobs and an unemployment rate of 6.5 per cent.

Funny Money

DigitalCurrency Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing 24 Comments

I’ve never owned any crypto currency mainly because I don’t believe it can serve as money in any useful fashion. That’s not to say I’m a fan of fiat currencies, but if any fiat currency experienced this kind of volatility, you couldn’t transact with it either.

The token hovered below $83,000 after a swift crypto sell-off triggered roughly $696 million in liquidations over 24 hours, with long-positioned traders bearing almost all of the losses, according to Coinglass data.

The vast majority of the damage occurred over a 12-hour window, driven primarily by forced unwinds of Ether (ETH-USD) and bitcoin positions.

 

Rioting Surrender Monkeys

entitlement generation It's Probably Nothing nannystate 16 Comments

Couldn’t they just freeze their bank accounts? Oh, wait, these protesters are leftists demanding more free stuff, so outright violence is an acceptable way to get that.

Police fired tear gas to control crowds in Paris and elsewhere in France on Tuesday as more than a quarter of a million people rallied nationwide to support high school students demanding more education funding,

“Riot police, batons, rubber bullets, tear gas,” said Aurélien Le Coq, a lawmaker with the far-left France Unbowed party. Its presidential candidate is strongly backing the protests. The violence is “absolutely unbearable,” Le Coq said.

 

Jumping Off The Fiscal Cliff

entitlement generation Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing 20 Comments

As bond yields continue their quick march upwards, inquiring minds want to know how a fiat currency regime plans to square the circle of exponentially rising debt and exponentially rising debt service costs.

In a much worse scenario, the next steps would need action by ⁠the Federal Reserve. One would be buying long-term bonds on a large scale, similar to the 1961 Operation Twist. The other would be putting an outright cap on long-term yields, which the US has not done since World War Two.

Ultimately, the only way to fix the debt problem is ​by cutting spending, said Veronique de Rugy, senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George ​Mason University. “Congress needs to do a fiscal adjustment. Austerity, in other words. The Fed can’t do it alone.”

But we all know that John Q. Voter will pummel any politician who threatens to limit his access to free stuff.

Too Little, Too Late

Canada’s Bolsheviks Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing nannystate You Might Be A Liberal 11 Comments

If the regulatory burden wasn’t so onerous, a northern pipeline would be self-financing, thus relieving Ontario taxpayers of the capital expenditure. But Blubber Dougie will promise pretty much anything to anyone these days, as do most of his political counterparts across the nation.

“Ontario is ready to supply the patient capital needed to get the project built,” Ford said. The premier later told reporters Ontario won’t pay for the pipeline alone, and that he expects outside investors to come to the table.

I guess Ontario’s deficits will just pay for themselves if only we build some pipelines?

Recall that back in 2018 Doug Ford called then-premier Kathleen Wynne’s spending “reckless” — which it was. But the deficit that year was $3.7 billion, not $13 billion. If the previous Liberal government’s $3.7-billion deficit was reckless, how the current government’s $13-billion deficit can be responsible is a mystery Premier Ford and his finance minister have left unexplained.

Trump Whispering

Gradually Then Suddenly New Governor 28 Comments

CBC;

Stelco Holdings Inc. said on Monday that it plans to idle part of its Hamilton plant in order to “ensure the survival” of the company, as U.S. tariffs squeeze its sales.

Stelco said the decision will impact up to 500 employees.

In a memo obtained by CBC News on Monday, the company said it will indefinitely idle its cold-rolled and coated operations at its Hamilton Works plant, with operations set to begin winding down on Oct. 9.

Juxtapose time: Trump unveils plans for a $15 billion steel mill in Iowa

Dumb And Dumber

Gradually Then Suddenly Insufferable Twits nannystate 30 Comments

Sometimes I wonder why the main political parties don’t just merge and get it over with. When they appear to agree that deficits will somehow pay for themselves, what difference would it really make?

British Columbia NDP Leader David Eby says his government would bring down the multibillion-dollar deficit year-over-year if elected by growing the economy and cutting what he called wasteful spending.

The province faces a projected deficit of $13.8 billion and Doerkson says Conservatives would trim that by growing the economy, if they win the snap election on Oct. 24.

The Masochistic Economy

entitlement generation Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing nannystate 8 Comments

Economies with fiat currencies will always have a tough time handling higher interest rates, given the exponential growth in debt that necessarily goes along with fiat. The insatiable demand from low IQ voters for more free stuff doesn’t help either. Nonetheless, it looks like we’re in for more rate hikes in the near future. Hold onto your hats, folks.

“Further policy adjustments are likely to be needed to ensure inflation comes down to target in a timely fashion,” Barr said in a speech in Chicago. “Inflation is above our 2% target and not clearly trending toward target in a timely way. Moreover, risks to achieving our inflation target have increased, while risks to the labor market have receded.”

To make matters worse, we now have a seven percent solution for the US housing market.

Circling The Drain

Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing 6 Comments

If you’ve checked out the price of beef lately or had a look at the prices on almost any restaurant menu, this should really come as no surprise.

Meritage Hospitality, one of Wendy’s largest U.S. franchisees, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Thursday.

At an investor conference in June, Meritage CEO Bob Schermer Jr. said that store-level earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization had plummeted 48% in 2025. Rising beef costs and increased discounts weighed on the franchisee’s profits.

Circling The Drain

Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing 6 Comments

Since everyone knows these “limits” are never going to be enforced, the EU is like the father endlessly shouting “don’t make me come up there!”

A ministry source told reporters the public debt would reach 119.3% of GDP in 2026 and 121.7% in 2027, more than double the 60% of GDP reference limit EU member countries are required to aim for.

France is the third most indebted country in the eurozone, behind only Greece and Italy.

Shifting Deck Chairs On The Titanic

#WalkAway Gradually Then Suddenly Great Reset It's Probably Nothing New Governor 48 Comments

It’s odd that associate membership with the EU was never once mentioned during the last election, yet today it is being celebrated by the chattering classes as if it were the best thing since sliced bread.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed Canada becoming the first associate member of the European Union.

Not everyone is cheerleading, however. But you have to go to lesser known publications to see any of that.

Smyth used stronger language in an August article in The Western Producer, writing that joining the EU would be an “unmitigated disaster.”

“The EU bans most of the technologies that have enabled Canadian farmers to become the most sustainable producers of crops anywhere on the planet,” Smyth wrote.

 

Ain’t Gonna Happen

Canada’s Bolsheviks Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing nannystate 17 Comments

A balanced budget at any level of government in Canada is wishful thinking on steroids these days. John Q. Voter’s capacity for critical thinking was numbed so effectively by the Covid spending spree that any political party would be wiped out at the polls if they implemented anything beyond token spending cuts.

The Parti Québécois is promising to balance the provincial budget by 2028-2029, a year earlier than the current Quebec government’s projections.

The PQ’s plan calls for a $6.6-billion reduction in government spending over five years.

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