Category: Gradually Then Suddenly

Dig That Poverty

Gradually Then Suddenly Great Moments In Socialism Khmer Noir 26 Comments

None of this is surprising for a country whose leaders refer to each other as comrade.

These days, South Africa ranks among the ten least attractive mining destinations.

“When the new administration took over, it decided to try to totally revamp mining law in South Africa and copy what other African nations did,” Major said.

“You can imagine. You put billions into projects for 100 years and are now threatened with state ownership. New investment just stopped. Exploration and expansion just stopped. Why put money in something the state owns?”

“They were also changing legislation non-stop. You first had to have a BEE partner that owned 25%, and that quickly increased to 30%. And then, they said 70% of the money you spend had to go to BEE suppliers.”

 

Canadian Exceptionalism

Gradually Then Suddenly Great Moments In Socialism It's Probably Nothing 22 Comments

Not to worry. This provides a golden opportunity for the Bank of Canada to get interest rates down to the good old days of zero. If that doesn’t work, Justin can always blame Trump.

Canada had 1.5 million unemployed people in November, propelling its jobless rate to a near-eight-year high outside of the pandemic era and boosting chances of a large interest rate cut on Dec. 11.

…the youth unemployment rate for those aged between 15 and 24 years was the biggest contributor at 13.9 per cent.

 

Gradually, Then Suddenly

Democrats Gradually Then Suddenly 50 Comments

Via Instapundit;

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.

More at the link. Let’s hear from our readers.

“So your country can’t survive unless it’s ripping off the U.S. to the tune of $100 billion?”

Garden Gnome Barbie Gradually Then Suddenly Shiny Pony 10 Comments

Do tell.

“I would say we’re in a recession, I wouldn’t even call it a technical one,” said Poloz, now special adviser to Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP, during a webinar on Tuesday. “A technical one is a superficial definition that you have two quarters of negative growth in a row, and we haven’t had that, but the reason is because we’ve been swamped with new immigrants who buy the basics in life, and that boosts our consumption enough.

Quelle Surprise

Gradually Then Suddenly Great Moments In Socialism It's Probably Nothing 8 Comments

The decline of France continues unabated.

It seems unlikely that France will have a 2025 budget…A provisional budget, likely mirroring the 2024 budget, will probably be implemented….The public deficit is expected to exceed 6% of GDP in 2024. The Barnier government had hoped to reduce it to 5% by 2025, but without a budget voted for in 2025, this target will not be met. The provisional budget will be slightly restrictive, as tax scales will not be adjusted for inflation, but will not contain any real savings measures.

The 10y yield spread of French government bonds over their German peers widened to 88bp on Monday.

The Great Toronto Condo Crash

Gradually Then Suddenly Great Reset 21 Comments

Toronto [Pre-Construction] Condos became wildly miss priced 6 years ago

And no one cared

People just kept on buying with a ridiculously false belief rents would increase massively & mortgage rates would be 2.49% forever

Buyers would snap up Pre-Con Condos at $1250 per sqft when Re-Sale Condos across the street were offered at $825 per sqft

WTF? It made no sense

It did not. And now the sense is remaking.

Avalanche Alert

Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing nannystate 17 Comments

Will the camel’s back finally break in 2025?

Ten thousand illegals showing up at our borders “would throw our system completely off kilter,” he warns. CBSA is still dealing with the aftermath of 492 Sri Lankan Tamils arriving in British Columbia on a Thai cargo ship in 2010…

And while Immigration Minister Marc Miller cautions “not everyone is welcome here” — and promises he’ll enforce the rules — it’s difficult to paint over Canada’s well-established reputation as a country that rolls out the red carpet to asylum seekers. Each year, thousands of migrants enter Canada, without authorization, between official ports of entry.

 

Circling The Drain

Gradually Then Suddenly Great Reset It's Probably Nothing 24 Comments

More evidence that the marginal consumer is tapped out. Combine that with ruinously expensive EV mandates and you’ve got a perfect storm that can take down a longstanding auto manufacturer.

A new report suggests that the automaker’s days are numbered. In an interview with the Financial Times, two unnamed Nissan executives said the company has “12 to 14 months to survive.” “This is going to be tough. And in the end, we need Japan and the US to be generating cash,” they said.

Slow sales in the US and Japan prompted Nissan to cut more than 9,000 jobs earlier this month, while simultaneously slashing production by nearly 20 percent. Nissan’s operating profit dropped 85 percent in the third quarter, with the company earning a net loss of ¥9.3 billion ($60.1 million at today’s exchange rate).

Money For Nothing

Alternative Subsidy Climate Cult Gradually Then Suddenly 13 Comments

You’d think a lame duck President would be a little less eager to plant landmines for an incoming administration, but it seems that nothing is off the table at this point.

On Tuesday, the US Department of Energy announced it would offer a direct loan of up to $6.57 billion (including $5.975 billion of principal and $592 million of capitalized interest) to finance Rivian’s EV factory in Stanton Springs North, near the City of Social Circle, Georgia.

As of Monday’s close, [Rivian] shares were down 50% year-to-date, with about 18% of the float short, equal to about 135 million shares.

 

Economic Illiteracy

Canada’s Bolsheviks Gradually Then Suddenly nannystate Shiny Pony 26 Comments

So Canadians just don’t have the right vibes now? Is a recession defined by a “vibe deficit” or something like that? This is just more “animal spirits” nonsense.

Federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said on Monday that she hopes her government’s proposed GST holiday will help bridge the gap between Canada’s macroeconomic picture and historically stressed-out households by bringing good vibes to the latter.

“People have been talking about a ‘vibecession’… and the fact that Canadians just aren’t feeling that good,” Freeland told reporters at a press conference in Ottawa to promote the temporary sales-tax reprieve.

Losing Money Is Our Business

Gradually Then Suddenly Great Moments In Socialism nannystate 18 Comments

Can we just defund this thing too? It’s broken beyond repair.

Canada Post reported a before tax loss of $315 million for the third quarter of 2024, widening its deficit by $25 million compared to the same period last year. The decline was attributed to ongoing challenges in its parcels segment, where revenue fell 5.8 per cent as volumes declined by 9.6 per cent. The report cited “a highly competitive and demanding parcel delivery market” as the key factor behind the drop.

Surprising The Investors

Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing 3 Comments

If an investor really wanted to become a landlord, there’s many ways to choose that route with full knowledge of where it leads. But Canada’s real estate market is now forcing that option onto some and locking up their capital until the market recovers, or so the managers are promising.

Real estate manager KingSett Capital Inc. suspended payments to investors in a large Canadian property fund, saying it needs to hoard cash as it deals with the consequences of the sector’s long slump.

The Toronto-based firm said holders of the KingSett Canadian Real Estate Income Fund won’t get any income distributions for the next year, nor will they be able to redeem their units.

The trend seems to be growing and it’s starting to sound a lot like a game of musical chairs.

The trend is most visible in Ontario, where projects like a partially completed condo development in Kitchener have been rescued by lenders. Gentai Capital and partners ELM Developments and Dorr Capital purchased the project out of receivership for $75 million last month. Gentai converted its second mortgage into a majority equity stake, injected new capital, and secured fresh financing from KingSett Capital to allow senior lenders to walk away without losses.

Off Target

Gradually Then Suddenly Great Reset It's Probably Nothing 11 Comments

Target obviously didn’t get the memo: the marginal consumer is tapped out.

Target severely missed earnings expectations on Wednesday, spooking investors who are now sending the retailer’s stock price toward its worst daily drop in over two years and its third-worst day in the stock market ever.

The company’s share price tanked 21% on Wednesday morning after it reported a sales decline, lower profit, and a stockpile of unsold inventory.

Boom And Then Bust

Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing 4 Comments

It took long enough, but higher interest rates are starting to have a negative impact on the housing market. A big problem today is that buyers of pre-sold condos, who often put a deposit down years in advance, are starting to walk away as they can now pick up a similar unit at a greatly reduced price. Whoever financed these projects is going to be looking at a very ugly balance sheet going forward.

New condo sales in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area are continuing to drop off, falling 81 per cent in the third quarter of 2024 compared to the same period last year, according to a new report by Urbanation.

The report, published Friday, shows that in the third quarter of this year, there were just 567 new condo sales in the GTA and Hamilton, the lowest quarterly total since 1995. This also represents a 87 per cent decline from the 10-year average for third-quarter sales in the region.

 

 

Luxury Items

Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing 17 Comments

When the marginal consumer gets tapped out, non-essential toys will be the first item stricken from the list.

The future is uncertain for dozens of employees at Arctic Cat in Thief River Falls.

The snowmobile and specialized vehicle manufacturer’s parent company, Textron Specialized Vehicles, announced layoffs on Wednesday, Nov. 13, citing difficult business conditions for the industry in general.

 

A Nice Parting Gift

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

Most wage earners would not be surprised to see a recession in the near future; for many, it’s already begun as prices have outstripped wage growth for many months.

Over 20.5% accumulated inflation over the past four years, government deficit spending has reached nearly $2 trillion annually despite record tax receipts and a growing economy, public debt has reached almost $36 trillion, and the monthly job figure includes an astonishing 43,000 new government jobs each month. In 2023, nearly 25% of all job gains were government ones, and the entirety of the growth of the labor force in the past four years came from foreign workers.

The Biden-Harris administration has left a massive time bomb for Trump and Elon Musk’s government efficiency office…

The Zimbabwe Solution

Gradually Then Suddenly Great Moments In Socialism It's Probably Nothing 13 Comments

In a country where the leaders refer to each other as comrade, it’s only a matter of time until they come up with a scheme to strip-mine investors. What could possibly go wrong?

Alarm bells are ringing in South Africa over the potential introduction of a wealth tax, a measure being pushed by several civil society organisations and now being considered by the National Treasury in collaboration with SARS.

If a wealth tax is to be introduced, questions remain as to whether it will tax wealth directly or focus on the returns generated by wealth, which are already subject to various taxes, including personal income tax, capital gains tax, and taxes on interest and rentals.

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