Wednesday our friends from the Bank of Canada kept their loose money policies in place. They seem to think core inflation is softening and there is no need to tighten money policies for the next little while, which is a good thing, given I don’t think any Worldwide economy could withstand a big interest rate jump (except maybe possibly the Antarctic Economy, but again, only my opinion).  A weaker world economy means that loose money policies continue. How much longer can this last is my only question?

To quote their statement:

Reflecting all of these factors, the Bank has decided to maintain the target for the overnight rate at 1 per cent. While some modest withdrawal of monetary policy stimulus will likely be required over time, consistent with achieving the 2 per cent inflation target, the more muted inflation outlook and the beginnings of a more constructive evolution of imbalances in the household sector suggest that the timing of any such withdrawal is less imminent than previously anticipated.

I think they have said that for the past few months.

You know it’s cold when the talking head on the Weather Network comes out and says, “The Temperature today was HOLY SH*T COLD!”. The last two weeks in January are traditional in Canada as being the coldest of the year (at least in the parts of Canada near the 49th parallel). My car has made some very interesting noises starting, and hopefully she can hold it together for another couple of weeks until the traditional warming up starts.

Finally,  the federal government has “lost” more information on Canadians (according to the CBC) thanks to a USB key with info “going walk about”.  There are 5,000 more folks who have had their personal info “lost” by an errant USB key? You’d think there should be rules about the handling of this information? Yes there are, however, I guess they aren’t being followed very closely. My guess is we won’t hear about the details of how someone was allowed to save this information on a USB Key, and how the key got misplaced, hopefully there will be closer tabs on our personal information?

Weekly Recap

Hopefully everyone kept their brass monkeys (and any other pets you might have) in this week:

My Writings for Week Ending January 25th Welcome to the Arctic
Cost per Use and Your Finances Another way to hopefully make you use your new treadmill a little bit more?	CRA Child Disability Benefit (How To) Paying forward to hopefully help a few parents with disabled kids get all the money that is due to them	Service and Fees A few clarifications from the previous post and emphasizing that you need not (necessarily) pay to get the services you need.	Voo Doo Emergency Funds My tribute to Ben Stein and what some folks think passes for an Emergency Fund

Where else am I?

Links for the Week

Bruce Cockburn has a great song about The Coldest Night of the Year, somehow listening to that song didn’t really warm me up much. Maybe there should be a punk version of it? “The Mother F**kingly COLDEST Night of the Year”? :

Top Stories of the Week of January 18th Hockey Begins and Freezing My Brass Monkeys
Casinos and Government An interesting comment on this post wants to compare Movie Theaters and Casinos, to which I said out loud,WTF?	3 Golden Rules to Rid Yourself of Debt Mark wants to add two more rules to “Spend less than you make” for some reason, but luckily doesn’t mention Good Debt.	Salary or Dividend? A Taxing Dilemma for Small Corporate Business Owners The BBC goes on a writing frenzy on this topic this week, with three separate posts, and all well worth reading.	Who Should NOT Have an RRSP? Gail Vaz-Oxlade goes on an interesting angle suggesting that there are folks who really shouldn’t be thinking about RRSPs (surprisingly I am one of them)
Group RESP Plans are Loaded with Fees The Canadian Capitalist reappears with a set of excellent points about the traditional Group RESPs that are still being sold to this day (and their fee structures)	Does a 60/40 Portfolio Still Make Sense? Does having 60% of your investments in the market and 40% in bonds still work? Spud Canuck writes an interesting study on this.	New Science Identifies Brain Damage In Living Football Players Popular Science talks about an interesting subject leading up to the Super Bowl, and that is how badly are football players brains being scrambled and how can we tell before they are dead?	App Lets Stolen Smartphones Snap Thieves In the Act What a great idea (reported by MIT Press) to have the stolen object report and identify the thief? Now that is my kind of technology!
Are stock market investors getting too greedy? Larry Mac subtitle says it all, “When the bulls start to run it’s time to hide”, but is it? When is the best time to get out of the market? Ask me in 6 months.	Switching Careers Midlife: Is It Worth It? Robb Boomer asks about whether a mid-life career change is a good thing. It has kind of worked for me, however, I didn’t really have a choice either.	Your advert here send an e-mail for info to bigcajunman at canajun finances dot com !	Professional real estate analyst weighs in on Canadian real estate (Podcast) Preet has a return guest visit with Ben Rabidoux on the Podcast to talk about Real Estate and is it time to crack open our skulls and eat the grey goo. Maybe it’s time for another BCM visit to the Preet Show?

Tweet of the Week

If you have been relying on the Microsoft free anti-virus software, it might be good to know that it is not really up to snuff just yet:

Microsoft’s anti-virus fails certification test for the second time bit.ly/WK6MVm #Microsoft #antivirus #certification #Bitdefender

— Bogdan Popa (@BogdanSPD) January 17, 2013

 

I would also strongly suggest that you add @BluntBeanCountr to your Twitter feed as Mark is tweetin’ some good tax tips:

Ensure for each #donation made online, you receive or request an official tax receipt. The online receipts are not official. #blunttaxtip

— Mark Goodfield (@bluntbeancountr) January 24, 2013

 

Other Bookkeeping

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Financially Unrelated Video of the Week

Wouldn’t it be nice to open your wallet and find another wallet in it with more money? Well this video is kind of like that: