Man, I would have loved to have gotten a look at the faces of all of those mortgage brokers as this guy was talking. Thanks for the link. Excellent foresight.

I wouldn’t spend too much time worrying about your place. You put a lot of thought into that and purchased something you know you could afford. You’ll be okay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoSwkCog-Ro&feature=PlayList&p=02C71D0CDFF9F38B&index=4

This was made in 2006. A year before I started saying the same, 2 years before now.

None of this is rocket science. The only difference between what this guy is saying and what I’ve said is that he can afford to dress better than myself!

There is no such thing as a truly unbiased free market. What we are getting is corporate communism.

I hope everyone keeps their head on and votes ABC this election. It’s just that simple.

The more I hear, the more I fear for my own house purchase. But after hearing what this guy has to say – yeah – I probably don’t have much to lose in the end. I just have an attachment to my home now and have never planned on using it as a short term trade-up…

Canada is going to be back on track for social democracy soon and then everything can go back to normal.

There’s been a dramatic change in the mood of the market in recent weeks. Right now the consequences of the “credit crunch” are affecting not only companies with large amount of debt and many speculative investments, but healthy ones, too. It seems every market “intervention” and economic “tweak” is just serving to make investors more nervous and serving to obfuscate risk. Confidence in the market will return at some point- I just don’t know when. Healthy, “recession-resistant” companies with solid track records will fare better long term in all of this, no doubt.

As for me, I’m quite good at seeing the potential negatives in any given situation, but not so good at seeing the potential positives. Once the dust settles on this, there will be many innovative ideas and investors waiting to fill the vacuum. People such as yourself will be far more able to seek out new sources of potential investment than people like me!

Have a fantastic Thanksgiving.

I met with my financial guy around the first of August and inquired about moving my stuff out of the stock market. Unfortunately, I was talked out of it. My best hope now is to stay in the market and hope to nail a few deals that might recover. I’m going blue chip all the way. A long history of strong assets, sales and profit is at the top of my list. Wish me luck.

Alex,

I heard an interesting comment on one of the news talk shows the other night. “At one time, fear of loss provided an excellent counter-balance to greed. These endless bailouts essentially remove fear of loss as a factor and promote greed.” (or something like that)

Hope you are well.

Stock markets and now the US bailout (and those of other countries) have been the primary tool to plunder the middle class.

Where does the money come from? Who is it going to?

Really – if someone is confused about this, they’re in some serious denial. It’s time for a paradigm shift.

“We must be getting close to the bottom as some of these stocks are starting to look pretty good.”

I was watching in horrified awe yesterday as GMC was trading at $2.67 (from a 52-week high of $30.10), and Ford was trading at $1.88. I seriously never thought I’d see anything like that in my life. I now hear that there is now talk of GM and Chrysler merging to attempt to survive this:

http://tinyurl.com/523z9w

I’m not sure about bank stocks. I’d do as much research as you can. There’s talks about the US government buying stock in financial institutions now, as I’m sure you’ve heard. I’m pretty sure this is limited to US financial institutions, but I’m not sure. My question is- if the government owns stock in the company and is also injecting massive liquidity into it, how do you know what the stock is really worth?

Scary times.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/10/10/business/EU-Italy-Meltdown.php

This is a rumor but if the stock markets are suspended to rewrite the rules we could be close to a bottom. Scary to think what the rules could be. Russia has shut down their stock markets a couple of times the last month. I wouldn’t rule out a radical fix.

“you are a heck of a lot luckier than most of your fellow humans walking the Earth.”

Easy for you to say having converted your assets to cash. Looks like I’m riding this thing to the bottom now.

We must be getting close to the bottom as some of these stocks are starting to look pretty good. I don’t know much about this stuff but when I see Royal Bank hit $39 it looks pretty appealing. Dividends of $2.00 per share and a fairly long history of raising them about 10% a year. An immediate return of 5% and growing from there if the share price sees no growth. In 10 years it’s paying about 12% a year in dividends. Is my thinking totally messed up? I need a rescue plan.

Larry,

Did you steal that from the GW Bush plan for financial freedom?

My captcha is pathetic govern

Ask the bank if you can borrow at prime +5, make the banks feel good.

Call Norm to help you buy your new home – absolutley!

Makes him feel good.

If the Sask prices are too low for you come see me.

I’ll feel good.

Buy furniture.

Buy appliances.

Makes the store owner feel good.

New car, of course! Hell, buy BMW’S for the kids too.

They’ll feel good.

Holiday on your Visa – why not! Makes you feel good?

Vote a couple of times for the feds. Consider it your charity work. They’ll feel good.

Sing Bobby Mcferrin’s song “Don’t Worry Be Happy”

as you slip the bullet in the chamber.

Result: You won’t worry and you might just be happy. :>)

Atta boy, George.

We are not the first people who have headed into difficult times or uncharted territory, my friend, and chances are good that if you are reading this, you are a heck of a lot luckier than most of your fellow humans walking the Earth.

If there is something close to a Great Depression 2, I think we can learn from the past to get out quicker.

The Depression’s history lessons

http://www.reportonbusiness.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081010.wrcover11/BNStory/Business/home

Don’t you think you’re taking this a bit far? Perhaps you haven’t heard that Saskatchewan will lead the nation for GDP this year?

http://www.reportonbusiness.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081010.wrautos10/CommentStory/Business/home#comments

They are finished. They were in trouble 2 years ago, nevermind a credit crisis.

There is no magic bullet to fix this financial crisis. Every fix ( $700 billion bailout, coordinated rate cuts) has done absolutely nothing to plug the leaky dam. Governments and banks are running out of ammo.

It seems the world has lived on low interest rates, cheap credit and has stretched itself too far with debt. The party is over.

A part of me has a sick feeling that whatever is done by governments and banks just is not enough. Whatever they do will postpone the inevitable.

Inevitable = Great Depression 2?

The Dow over the last year

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=%5EDJI#chart1:symbol=^dji;range=1y;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined

TSX over the last year

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=%5EGSPTSE#chart1:symbol=^gsptse;range=1y;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined

They will study this period for decades.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/10/news/economy/oil_prices/?postversion=2008101013

“I’m not going to rule out some extraordinarily low numbers, even $20 a barrel,”

Maybe we could see gas prices go below $1/liter with $20 oil:)

agreed, I was wrong with that statement. Here is why.

But I think the banks were TOLD to lower the rate, not asked.

TD lowers prime rate

http://www.reportonbusiness.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081010.wtdrate1010/BNStory/Business/home?cid=al_gam_mostview

St. John’s has biggest jump in new housing prices

http://news.sympatico.msn.ctv.ca/abc/home/contentposting.aspx?isfa=1&feedname=CTV-TOPSTORIES_V3&showbyline=True&newsitemid=CTVNews%2f20081010%2fhousing_prices_081010

“The cost in St. John’s rose 23.7 per cent as builders reported higher material, labour and land development costs.”

St. John’s builders must have used the same suppliers that Saskatoon used in 07-08 and Calgary used in 06-07:)

http://globeinvestor.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081010.wtdrate1010/GIStory/

Crikey,

I think there will definitely be some exposure on the MBS’s. How could there not be? Hopefully the upside is better than the downside.

Well, I may be way too trusting here, but I think it was. The economy would grind to a halt without credit, and they know it. I’m quite certain they’re not selfless, however… they do earn interest on that borrowed money. Particularly over very long terms. They know that, too.

“On the bright side,being a taxpayers, we may get to pay for a property that you and I will never set foot in ”

Gee, thanks for pointing that out.

I highly doubt this was done for the benefit of the people. It is just the rich helping out the rich with smoke and mirrors.

On the bright side,being a taxpayers, we may get to pay for a property that you and I will never set foot in

In the event of defaults on mortgages that are CMHC insured, I’m pretty sure it has always been the government (i.e. the taxpayer) who was going to backstop these. I’m just not sure if there is any additional liability now with the MBS’s. Any bankers/financiers out there?

writedowns and distress

http://bankimplode.com/blog/category/writedowns-and-distress/

Crikey,

Some places in Canada will see drastic drops in property values and this will lead to many defaults. We seem to be 2 years behind the States. It won’t be as bad, but for some it won’t matter, they will default. This will affect the Canadian banks. But I wonder with our “bailout”, it will be the taxpayers who will be affected, not the banks.

http://tinyurl.com/3l6v8w

As far as I can ascertain, this plan is (only?) buying loans were already insured by the CMHC, so it shouldn’t put the taxpayer at any greater risk tan they were already, no?

So they’re going to purchace “up to” $25 billion in insured mortgage pools/mortgage-backed securities to increase bank liquidity- I get that. What I don’t really get is how the government thinks it can make money on this deal. That seems to be assuming a whole lot. What if the value of the underlying asset (the mortgages) depreciates enough that they have to repriced? Or, heaven forbid, they default? Is the taxpayer now on the hook for both the mortgage-backed security loss and the mortgages themselves? If anyone can explain this to me, I’d really appreciate it.