Financial Markets Meltdown

[Trochu]

Interesting personal note...I bought a bunch of Argonaut Gold, see they are getting bought/merging with Alamos Gold, stock has gone up 66.6% in the last month. Never owned stock of a company that was bought out/merged with another. Guess I need to wade though the intricacies to see what the merger deal is regarding Argonaut shareholders. Yay!

[DiabeticKripple]

Originally Posted by Trochu

Interesting personal note...I bought a bunch of Argonaut Gold, see they are getting bought/merging with Alamos Gold, stock has gone up 66.6% in the last month. Never owned stock of a company that was bought out/merged with another. Guess I need to wade though the intricacies to see what the merger deal is regarding Argonaut shareholders. Yay!

I’ve been through a few mergers, you’ll likely just get an amount of stocks in the purchasing company that equals the amount you have invested in the company being bought. Basically a straight swap over.


GTE for me is starting to creep back up. A solid Canadian oil company operating in Columbia and Ecuador.

[tranq78]

Originally Posted by Drewski Canuck

Who really needs that kind of growth in their Portfolio. Justin and Friends will take care of you from Cradle to Grave and even feed your kids lunch at School, (something you will not be able to do at home once Justin and Friends are done with you),

SO PLEASE THINK ABOUT THE CHILDREN!!!!

Drewski

Ya know Drewski, school programs are a provincial responsibility not a federal one -- that includes Alberta lunch programs. And provinces, including Alberta, already has this plan.

Trudeau/Freeland's announcement of a child food program was done with zero consultation with the provinces. The provinces weren't even told ahead of time, not even the liberal/NDP provinces.

Good sound bites though for CBC to let us know how well the feds are taking care of us. Don't mention the already existing nasty UCP school nutrition program, a lunch program must be a totally different thing. See how doublespeak and willful ignorance works?

=========

Back to investing topics.

Oil and gas companies are benefitting from the unintended consequences of Trudeau trying to kill the industry.

The surviving energy co's have stopped growth spending. They are just spending enough to replace the reserves they used up while at the same time demand continues to grow even under Trudeau as our population is growing.

This means the current energy cycle is going to continue for a way longer time than past cycles.

Now hush, stop talking about it. You'll let everyone in on the secret and we can't have that!

[Drewski Canuck]

Originally Posted by tranq78

Ya know Drewski, school programs are a provincial responsibility not a federal one -- that includes Alberta lunch programs. And provinces, including Alberta, already has this plan.

Trudeau/Freeland's announcement of a child food program was done with zero consultation with the provinces. The provinces weren't even told ahead of time, not even the liberal/NDP provinces.

Good sound bites though for CBC to let us know how well the feds are taking care of us. Don't mention the already existing nasty UCP school nutrition program, a lunch program must be a totally different thing. See how doublespeak and willful ignorance works?

=========

Back to investing topics.

Oil and gas companies are benefitting from the unintended consequences of Trudeau trying to kill the industry.

The surviving energy co's have stopped growth spending. They are just spending enough to replace the reserves they used up while at the same time demand continues to grow even under Trudeau as our population is growing.

This means the current energy cycle is going to continue for a way longer time than past cycles.

Now hush, stop talking about it. You'll let everyone in on the secret and we can't have that!

Oh Brother I know your pain!!! But it was not Trudeau's policies, it is also the US Democrats who created this crisis in the Oil Markets.

The Majors are all that is left in North America due to mergers in the US Industry. They are not investing in North America, and are only harvesting profits. They are waiting for a change in political climate before proceeding to re invest.

But they are working off shore in places like Guyana. This is why big players like Exxon, Chevron, Shell are going up 1- 3 % per week right now.

The Canadian Oil Space has seen small and mid level producers fail or be bought out from 2015 forward. The Majors still play in our Patch through big Oil Sand Plays for the simple reason that they own the Refineries on the US Gulf Coast that are set up to process this heavy oil, bought at a steep discount of course!!! The so called Differential was well known to the Liberals / NDP, who let this heavy oil discount continue for so long and allowed the US Multi Nationals get very rich on our expense. The fix was in from 2015 forward. The US Multi Nationals paid very little Tax in Canada, as the Discounted Canadian Heavy Crude Oil was sold to the US Refineries where the Processing resulted in a huge Value Added finished product and profit, for the US.

Things are now changing in Alberta. The Heartland Upgrader is taking Bitumen ROYALTY In Kind (BRIK) and making Alberta money.

Trans X is now running and there will be an alternative market for our heavy Oil forcing the US Multi Nationals to compete for our Heavy Oil and driving up the prices.

Now all that we need is for Domestic small and medium sized producers be Incorporated, start working in the Western Canadian Oil Patch, and start drilling for conventional oil. That is what creates the jobs and creates the wealth for Alberta.

Drewski

[Dean2]

These are American numbers but pretty clear the reported CPI numbers are pure B.S., as I have said many times. Food inflation in Canada has actually been even worse.

7) Is CPI Understating Food Inflation?
A WSJ analysis found that a commonly purchased basket of supermarket goods has increased in price by 36.5% over the past 4 years (+8.1% per year). This is much higher than the US Government CPI figures which show food price inflation of 25.2% over the last 4 years (+5.8%/year).



Meanwhile, average hourly earnings in the US have increased 21% over the past 4 years (+4.9% per year). This is one reason why many Americans, particularly those with lower incomes, feel like they’re falling behind.


For all of you that believe the highest income earners pay next to no tax, or far below their fair share, this might be of interest.

The top 1% of income earners in America made 26% of the country’s total income in 2021 and paid 46% of total income taxes (their avg tax rate: 26%). The bottom 50% of income earners made 10% of total income and paid 2% of total income taxes (their avg tax rate: 3%).

[Buckhead]

So the other 49% of the schmucks in the middle brackets paid 52% of the total income tax, in other words.

[Dean2]

Originally Posted by Buckhead

So the other 49% of the schmucks in the middle brackets paid 52% of the total income tax, in other words.

It would be more accurate to say that the top 10% of earners paid 76% of the income tax collected. The other 90% of earners paid the remaining 24% and the bottom 50% were only about 3% of the 24%. Thus the top 11% to 50% paid 21% of the total tax collected, with the 25% to 50% contributing only 8% of that.

What this demonstrates is the top earners pay a very large amount of the total tax paid, despite them being a quite small number of income earners.

[Dean2]

One more point, in case it wasn't clear. The vast majority of those that work, being 75% of the income earning population, only accounts for 11% of total tax collected. These are American numbers, in Canada, the load on the top earners is even higher than it is in the States.

If you run off the high paying jobs, and the people who are in those high paying jobs, like Canada has been so ruthlessly trying to do for the past 8 years, then the tax burden falls more and more on the lower income earners. This is what the carbon tax, sales taxes, taxes on alcohol, cigarettes, cannabis, inflation, property taxes, school taxes and all the other new levies and tax increases are in the process of doing.

If you think we have a productivity problem in Canada now, and it is already REALLY bad, it will only get progressively worse if the Liberals keep killing off the high paying jobs in our economy. If they manage to shut down Oil and Gas, 30% of our GDP would disappear. there is a reason why high tech doesn't thrive in Canada, no one wants to suffer the tax burden here when they can get paid in the States and pay half the tax.

[Drewski Canuck]

What people and politicians forget is that wealthy people are the ones who have the capital to invest, innovate, and lead the economy.

High wage earners are professionals, as well as Business people.

The reason for a brain drain from Canada is the opportunity to make and KEEP more elsewhere. Once the business professional class leaves, it takes generations for a new group to rise up into this role.

What is so funny is that alot of the Laurentien Liberal Elite are families that have already moved their wealth and businesses off shore. Yet these are the same Politicians trying to tax the average Canadian to poverty.

If Pierre Polievre wants a Campaign Slogan, it is blatantly clear: Canada, lets PROSPER.

There is no other message that has to be communicated. Right now, Justin and Friends are squandering our chance at prosperity.

Drewski

[KGB]

Was reading today that one of the financial gurus is predicting our loonie will drop to $.50 US by the end of this year… If that’s a case- we are going to be in a deep poop! Gold is over $2200 so the actual inflation is closer to 50% in the last two years…

[Dean2]

A little more information on Productivity. I find it interesting that this is starting to be a regular discussion piece. It should already have been for at least the last 6 years.



Mark Parsons, ATB ECONOMICS | April 11, 2024

The productivity imperative:

Talk of Canada's sluggish productivity performance has been trending. Senior Deputy Governor Carolyn Rogers recently said the need to bolster productivity is “an emergency - it’s time to break the glass”.

Productivity is the ability to convert resources (raw materials, people and capital) into output. It ultimately determines a jurisdiction’s living standards. Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman once remarked: “Productivity isn’t everything, but, in the long-run, it is almost everything”.

While that sounds important, it also sounds a bit theoretical. It’s easy to dismiss productivity as an abstract academic concept.

Incomes are more relatable. In a Hub article released last week, University of Calgary professor Trevor Tombe shows a clear connection between declining real earnings growth and weak productivity, warning the “Great Canadian Slump” is back.

Another way to make the productivity-wage connection is by looking at industries. Statistics Canada maintains detailed productivity accounts for individual industries. As shown in the below figure, there is a strong relationship between the productivity of workers in an industry and the wages it pays.

Energy-related industries have among the highest levels of productivity and wages in Canada. We recently showed that the majority of Alberta’s higher overall labour productivity (vs. the national average) is due to the province having a higher concentration of workers in these industries.

Bottom line: Productivity shouldn’t be dismissed as a theoretical or academic concern. When labour productivity suffers on a sustained basis, it ultimately translates into lower overall wages for workers.


Owl chart Apr 11 2024