Category: economics

What’s money worth?

“The interest rate-sensitive S&P 500 Banks Index surged 2.5%, following a rise in U.S. Treasury yields.” Reuters September 5, 2019

For anyone who didn’t know: all that money safely buried in bonds took bond yields and stock markets down; when it returned to stocks, bond yields went up. Money buying bonds raises their price and lowers their yields: interest rates. Selling bonds to buy things like stocks lowers the price of bonds and raises interest rates.

Gold stocks also went down with the price of bonds. Since people buy gold when they are sceptical of money’s worth, will they resort to barter if money’s value is erased?

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World Poverty

This morning my sports & weather breakfast news showed Ontario’s former premier and Toronto resident smiling before a group walking for world poverty. And I wondered – has anyone bothered to ride line 2 of the Toronto subway between Warden and Yonge lately?

Some one finally read an old weapons post.

It’s almost 2 years (June 8,2017) since I asked why NATO was pleased with https://deremigi.wordpress.com/2017/06/08/canadas-purchase-of-war-weapons-pleases-nato/ Canada’s latest purchases of war weapons as President Trump was announcing his intended increase in USA’s weapon’s expenditures to make America great again. I don’t think any Pulitzer Prize journalist said anything about the president and his military: they seemed too distracted by his appearance and personality to bother writing about foreign policy and the making of expensive weapons to be purchased by the USA treasury.

Change, Robots, and a more affordable Labour Pool

I keep hearing that people lose jobs because of advances in technology: shiny metal robots are replacing working class muscle and female allure. Change is everywhere so rapid that humans can’t keep up and pretty girls fall to the wayside; North American auto makers like GM lose market share to makers from Japan and  Korea. Piano builders move to China in a big factory where other people make all North America’s big name grands, like Canada’s Heinztman , that you still can buy here if you wait for it to be shipped to BC from where it’s manufactured in China.

And where is that steel made that the US wants to tariff since Canada and the US closed their mills decades ago?

And everyone knows where the US’ Apple, at one time the largest capitalised company in America, makes its products.

And has anyone ever seen those electronic products we used to think they made only here like televisions and stereo equipment. All those jobs were shipped to Asia before a lot of people were born.

Interest Rates & World Oil

I’d forgotten about a piece that I’d written in October 2017 about BNN’s no longer showing daily interest rate fluctuations and the Loonie’s value in  U.S. dollars. Back then the Loonie’s value in green backs was 80 cents with world oil hovering about $50 a barrel.

But since October 2017 Canada’s BNN has become Bloomberg’s BNN, and the numbers that stopped appearing then are back. These days, November 9 -11, 2018; the Loonie has fallen from 80 cents U.S. to less than 77 cents even when oil had risen to over $70 a barrel. But also since then the U.S., Canada’s most important importer of Tar Sands oil has been reported to have become a net exporter of oil, perhaps helped by oil prices recent increase to above $70.

Since the threat of increased interest rates in North America, the price of gold has remained within the $1225-1235 range; and I continue to watch the mostly stationary price of gold  to confirm the trepidation central bankers must be experiencing about putting overnight interest rates back above the negligible 2% rate.

Just a lot of “hot air”

Looking online for the source of a August 20 television announcement that Canada’s Prime Minister was getting back into NAFTA negotiations I got this weeks old rallying cry heading a June 20, 2018 Toronto Star article:

“Trudeau urges Canadians to travel and buy Canadian in the face of U.S. trade dispute”.

 

I have always tried to buy things produced in Canada; but things for sale in stores come from anywhere but Canada. Encouraging people to buy Canadian makes sense only to recent arrivals who don’t understand that since before they were born Canada’s elite have been selling Canadian retailers and manufactures to investors with  American CEO’s like Steve Williams of Suncor (Sun Oil subsidiary) who replaced that other US CEO who in 2009 bought Crown Corporation Petro Canada from Mr Harper  conditioned on its selling gas under the Petro Canada sign.

And more recently Tim Hortons, named after a Toronto Maple Leaf defenceman was bought by investors down in Brazil, And then there’s that old Hudson’s Bay story ( Canada’s? oldest retailer, but no longer Canadian owned and managed

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