Category: Gradually Then Suddenly

Gating Your Capital

Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing New Governor Shiny Pony 8 Comments

I like Jeff Snider’s podcasts and in this one he spends the first half talking about Canadian real estate investment funds that are starting to restrict payouts. Given that Canadian real estate values are crashing, if they don’t halt outflows the funds could quickly become insolvent. The Bloomberg article he quotes is behind a paywall, but he conveniently scrolls through it so you can read the whole thing.

“Stung by a deep downturn in the country’s housing market, many of the funds have restricted cash distributions, client withdrawals, or both in a process the industry calls gating. Often the companies don’t say when access will resume, and about 30 billion Canadian, about 21.7 billion US equivalent. Almost 40% of the 80 billion Canadian invested in such funds is now locked up.”

Tough Times

Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing 14 Comments

It looks like it’s not just a matter of people being unable to afford coffee at MacDonald’s anymore. The high end consumer looks to be tapped out as well. Maybe they should have hedged with some silver purchases.

The owner of Saks Fifth Avenue is seeking bankruptcy protection, buffeted by rising competition and the massive debt it took on to buy its rival in the luxury sector, Neiman Marcus, just over a year ago.

On a personal note, a salesman from a manfacturing input vendor told me yesterday that one of his clients, a well know agricultural equipment manufacturer in western Canada, is bracing for a 40% decline in sales this year.

Tax Trouble

47 Art Of The Deal Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing 8 Comments

If the US is going to eliminate income taxes or fund all the things that the administration is proposing, the revenue stream seems to be going in the wrong direction. What’s more is that reliance on tariffs for tax revenue offers a very obvious escape route: if you can produce something with inputs sourced solely in the US, you don’t pay tariffs at all. As that option broadens, tax revenue will logically go down, not up.

The release brings the total revenue collected in 2025 to $264.05 billion. It’s a historically high annual total — but also the second straight monthly decline after Trump dialed back key tariffs last November.

The peak for the year was October’s monthly haul of $31.35 billion. The first decline then came in November, with $30.76 billion in customs duties collected that month.

Hard Times

Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing 10 Comments

You know things are getting tough when McDonald’s freezes the price of a small coffee and value meals. In a sagging economy, producers simply can’t jack up prices in the face of consumers without the means to afford them.

She announced Tuesday that McDonald’s Canada will freeze the price of a small cup of coffee at $1 for at least a year and drop the price of its McValue meals to $5 for the same duration.

“Canadians are facing challenges and are insecure financially. What we are doing is listening and giving them what they want,” she said.

 

Elbows Down!

Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing New Governor 12 Comments

More evidence of Canadian exceptionalism. But not something to cheer about.

The unemployment rate rose to 6.8 per cent in December, StatCan said, up from 6.5 per cent in November.

What’s really notable is where the losses are occurring:

The professional, scientific and technical services sector meanwhile shed 18,000 positions to end the year, and the accommodation and food services industry also faced losses.

 

The Zero Percent Interest Miracle

Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing nannystate 11 Comments

Back in the 1980’s it was fashionable to proclaim that Japan, with an allegedly superior mixture of central planning and free markets, would soon own the world. It now looks like they can’t even maintain their own world, let alone anyone else’s. Decades of embracing Keynesian economics have resulted in a very bitter harvest.

Once famously derided for building bridges to nowhere, Japan’s government is now struggling to maintain them.

Even before the quake, Suzu was struggling to carry out routine maintenance of infrastructure due to money and manpower shortages. Over the past 25 years, its municipal tax revenue dropped 43% as the working-age population nearly halved. In the Noto region, the labor force fell by about 30% in the 15 years through 2020, compared to the roughly 10% drop nationwide…

 

Sparky Car Blues

Climate Cult Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing Y2Kyoto 22 Comments

I suspect the reasons for Tesla’s sales slump have less to do with Elon’s political views and more to do with the fact that the EV market has generally been stoked by hype as opposed to tangible value.

Tesla said that it delivered 1.64 million vehicles in 2025, down 9% from a year earlier.

For the fourth quarter, sales totaled 418,227, falling short of the 440,000 that analysts polled by FactSet expected. The sales total was impacted by the expiration of a $7,500 tax credit that was phased out by the Trump administration at the end of September.

Bad Advice

Canada’s Bolsheviks entitlement generation Gradually Then Suddenly 6 Comments

Who knew that Canada’s problems are the result of not paying people enough not to work?

At the heart of the issue, he said, is Canada’s eroded social safety net, particularly employment insurance (EI), which, along with other social programs, isn’t keeping up with today’s economy.

EI benefits have mostly stayed the same in value and replace roughly 55 per cent of a person’s wages. The benefits are higher than in the United States, but they lag far behind European countries such as Denmark, where they replace 90 per cent of a person’s wages, the Netherlands (70 per cent) and Sweden (80 per cent).

Ready For What? Defeat?

Gradually Then Suddenly I, Napoleon Military 13 Comments

Canada’s top general might want to start a new career in standup comedy. She’s got a few one-liners that are guaranteed to get some laughs.

And like all the militaries in the world … especially when we’re looking at our allies, we’re going to be ready to go as-is.

All of our services right now are crafting and positioning themselves to be able to take the additional number of people coming in. …Everybody is all-hands-on-deck in doing that. It’s quite exciting, I have to say.

Delusional Advice

Canada’s Bolsheviks Gradually Then Suddenly New Governor 31 Comments

It’s probably not a good idea to “stand firm” when your feet are in quicksand.

As Canada approaches a review of its key free trade deal with the United States next year, Unifor national president Lana Payne says it’s important to stand firm for a good deal. Payne said it’s important to play hardball, and not allow tariffs to be legitimized in any form. Instead, Canada needs to hold out and let the “self-inflicted wounds” of tariffs create pressure instead.

“We’re seeing that now in the United States where their economy is suffering and worsening by the day,” Payne said in a Dec. 19 interview.

Elbows Down!

Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing New Governor 21 Comments

Way down. Might as well stick a fork in us. Since GDP is just a measure of all the borrowing and spending in an economy no matter who undertakes it, it’s disturbing that our economy is contracting despite record deficits for all levels of government. The real problem is shrinking private sector manufacturing.

The Canadian economy shrank by a greater-than-expected 0.3% in October, the largest drop in almost ​three years, on weakness in both the goods and ‌services sectors, official data showed on Tuesday.

The manufacturing sector dropped by 1.5%, partly reflecting a ‌6.9% plunge in machinery output. Wood product manufacturing dropped by 7.3%…

 

Elbows Down!

Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing New Governor There Goes The Narrative 21 Comments

Since existing port facilities don’t have the capacity, I fully expect that someone will soon suggest that we access magical new export markets by shipping through Churchill. This is what Canadian exceptionalism actually amounts to: the stubborn insistence that we’re entitled to our dreams no matter how hard reality smacks us in the face.

But a recent announcement from one of Canada’s most successful natural resources exporters, saying that future exports will soon be shipped to overseas markets from a port in the state of Washington instead of Canada’s west coast, has raised fresh questions about whether some key Canadian ports even have the capacity to handle any more of those diversified goods. Any bottlenecks or other inefficiencies would only be magnified if exporters are able to hit Carney’s recent target that Canada will double non-U.S. exports over the next decade.

The Numbers Game

Canada’s Bolsheviks entitlement generation Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing 13 Comments

It’s pretty hard to believe that a deficit could be literally twice what you estimated in the space of a few months, but Wab’s got one thing one his side: average John Q. Manitoba voter probably couldn’t care less. They just want the free stuff to keep coming.

The Manitoba government’s deficit for the current fiscal year is expected to reach $1.6 billion, more than double the $794 million estimated in the spring budget, the province’s second-quarter report released Monday showed.

There Was Significant Shrinkage…

Gradually Then Suddenly Great Reset It's Probably Nothing 7 Comments

More evidence that the marginal consumer is tapped out as shrinking economies continue to experience declining demand for commodities like oil. Is the concept of an oil pipeline from Alberta to coastal waters even viable at this point?

Even with a recent decision by OPEC to hold production rates steady through the first quarter, the International Energy Agency said last week that it now expects 2026’s oil glut to reach 3.8 million barrels per day.

On the water, crude tankers at sea are now holding more than 1 billion barrels — a figure that has steadily risen over the past few months as sellers have had a harder time finding buyers willing to take the oil.

Job Shredding

Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing New Governor 11 Comments

As is typical of mainstream financial media reporting, you need to scroll to the bottom of an article to see a comment by David Rosenberg regarding Canada’s recent unemployment numbers. I suppose putting the comment at the top would have raised too many eyebrows.

While Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey is telegraphing a jobs boom, its Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours (SEPH) is telling a different story, said Rosenberg, founder and president of Rosenberg Research & Associates Inc. In the latter report the number of employees receiving pay and benefits dropped by 58,000 in September. For the first time in five years payroll employment was “completely flat,” he said.

“In a sign that there is more slack in the Canadian jobs market than meets the eye … if we were to superimpose the SEPH employment trend on the LFS (household) survey, the unemployment rate would be 8.2 per cent, not 6.9 per cent — and that would be the highest since May 2021,” said Rosenberg.

 

Dispatches from the Maple Gulag Truck Stop

Canada’s Bolsheviks Forward! Gradually Then Suddenly Great Moments In Socialism It's Probably Nothing 11 Comments

Bankruptcies abound, yet the Mark Carney’s job numbers show a huge increase in transportation and warehousing?  I am starting to think the job numbers are prepared by the same people who said Mark Carney would win by a landslide in Alberta.  Trucking News reports on bankruptcies in Canada and Freightwaves reports on US bankruptcies, so any news of growth in the industry is highly suspicious.  Several months ago Gord Magill reported on the financial chinanery in the trucking industry

Sonar truck freight index shows an 11% decrease this year after several years of decreases.  Yet somehow we are supposed to believe the economy is adding jobs when trucking is failing, construction jobs are down and housing sales are flat?  Something stinks in the state of Denmark.

Money For Nothing

Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing nannystate 5 Comments

Yet another example of what happens when a bunch of politicians scream “emergency” and a gullible John Q. Public largely falls for it. This reminds me of a Seinfeld episode where Kramer tries to explain to Jerry what happens when a company makes a bad investment decision: “They just write it off, Jerry!”

Ontario wrote off more than one billion items of personal protective equipment at a cost of $1.4 billion since 2021 and is now burning expired products, the province’s auditor general found.

The province signed long-term contracts for PPE between October 2020 and April 2021 that locked it into buying 188 million surgical masks annually. Yet it only distributed 39 million of those masks last year, or 21 per cent.

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