It is a long weekend, but a weird one since most of us haven’t really been going into work. Is it a long weekend? Well it will be in Ontario, because on Tuesday May 19th 2020 more stores will be opening up. Will this cause a Boxing Tuesday effect (i.e. people lining up to get in, showing up at 5 AM)? Maybe not, but it may cause more shopping mayhem. Stores that have opened so far do seem quite, crazy.
In Ontario we are only in Phase 1 of opening back up, and there are many rules still in place, but will people follow the rules? That remains to be seen. We see our rowdy southern neighbors are already acting like, it was all a bad dream. Time will tell whether this is the right way to do things. My opinion is a slow opening is a good thing, but until we have a vaccine or cure, we won’t be anywhere near “normal”.
Much more financial help announced by the government this week, and you should read about all of them. Seniors are getting some money, students are getting some money, etc.,. The Tories are worried about possible fraud in the system, I am confident the CRA will find the obvious ones. I am with the pundits that are asking, how will this all be paid for? Again, we shall see.
Note that Unemployment rate is now at 13.0%, that is a very high rate of Jobless Claims.
Inflation (year over year February 2020) | 2.2% |
Bank of Canada Overnight Rate April 21st | 0.25% |
Unemployment Rate (as of April 2020) | 13.0% |
GDP Growth January 2019-20 | 1.8% |
Population of Canada (Jan 1, 2020) | 37.894 Million |
CIBC current prime rate | 2.45% |
BMO current prime rate | 2.45% |
Scotiabank prime lending rate | 2.45% |
TD prime lending rate | 2.45% |
Past Writings
My hope is that my prediction that things will change in the world of office design really will change, but I am pragmatic enough to know it may not happen in my career space.
- The Death of the Open Concept Office Space is my perusing of a CDC report and hoping that it really does mean the end of the open office space, and get back to a bit more respect for employees. Is this really going to happen? We shall see.
It is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities.
Josiah Stamp
More Financial Writings for a Long Weekend
Some interesting reads for your long weekend, while you are still practicing social distancing (I hope). It was also Privacy Awareness Week this past week, did you realize that?
- Did you realize there was an actual investigation by the government about Facebook and their use of your data? You should read, Joint investigation of Facebook, Inc. by the Privacy Commissioner of Canada and the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia, to understand the lengths Facebook went to invade your privacy.
- Playing with FIRE is a book review by Michael James with his commentaries on the content, the best line being that FIRE is, “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do! You merely have to align what you want with how you spend.â€
- I read magazines, for free, on line thanks to the Ottawa Public Library. This allows me to read things, I wouldn’t pay for so Kiplinger is a good example, and they had an interesting article, Kip ETF 20: The Best Cheap ETFs You Can Buy. Luckily Kiplinger has some articles on line as well.
- BNN Bloomberg gave me the biggest spit take of the week when I saw, Inflation Is the Way to Pay Off Coronavirus Debt. Speaking as someone who lived through the 70’s and 80’s, not on your bloody life, Sunshine!
- I am reaching an age soon (60) where I will really need to start planning my estate, and luckily I read the Blunt Bean Counter. This week we have Alter Ego Trusts and Joint Partner Trusts – An Example – estate planning that needs to be read.
- I have been wandering around the Interweb , thanks to all this spare time I have. I found an interesting testimonial Happy Money, which is an outsiders view on Money (the blogger is not a money person).
Tweets of the Week
The PM makes a very good point, if you are shopping right now, Buy Canadian, and even more, Buy Local. So many small businesses need the business (Jeff Bezos is about to be a Trillionaire, so he doesn’t need it).
Possible the most esoteric Twitter discussion about Bitcoin, ends up with J.K. Rowling buying one? The Interweb is a wild and whacky place!
Videos of the Week
Preet has been pumping out video content about all the new COVID19 programs, and here is another good one. Can someone please send him a razor?
What if there was no Privacy?
Random Thoughts from the Past
- Opening up, May Day, COVID19 and #MoneyTalk (May 1st)
- Unemployment Spikes, Easter and #MoneyTalk (April 11th)
- Covid-19, Stay Home and #MoneyTalk (March 27th)
- Dusty Typewriters and #MoneyTalk (November 8th)
- March Madness and #MoneyTalk (March 30th)
- Lent Begins and #Moneytalk (March 6th)
- Christmas Treats, RESPs, The Markets and Polkas and #MoneyTalk (December 17th)
- GM, PC M/C Changes, Podcasts and #MoneyTalk (November 30th)
- RDSP Awareness , Volatility and #MoneyTalk (October 12th)
- Tech Infiltration , NAFTA/USMCA, WiFi, Tornadoes and #MoneyTalk (October 5th)
Terrible times indeed. So many people have lost there jobs and so many can’t go to work. We had to face a cyclone recently and as a result a lot of homes have their power cut. Days are not getting any better.
I agree that a slow opening is the right thing to do. The funny thing is I needed to go out to the stores and get groceries and the parking lots were just as empty as before. I think that most places are treating this with the gravity that it needs.
Thankfully the vaccine progress has been pretty encouraging.
I am very curious how deep the long term impact of this will be, will we simply forget it in a few years and go back to ‘Normal’ or will there be a lasting effect? We forgot 2008 pretty quickly.
Could get interesting, I suspect this has a few more social ramifications that 2008 didn’t have. We shall see is all I can guess right now.
re: “My opinion is a slow opening is a good thing, but until we have a vaccine or cure, we won’t be anywhere near “normalâ€.”
If we never return to normal until a vaccine or cure is available, that would be purely out of choice and all the fear driven into everybody and not out of necessity. Consider some of these facts:
– Many people never took a H1N1 (aka swine flu) vaccine even though about 61 million people were infected with it in the US alone.
– There has yet never been any safe vaccine created for any other corona-virus to date, including MERS or SARS. Would you be willing to try out a rushed to market vaccine in under 1 year for this new corona virus that typically takes 4+ years (and as much as 10 years) to properly test for safety, let alone efficacy?
– when was the last time that you needed a vaccine for the Spanish flu that wipe out about 10% of all that contracted it and infected nearly 1/3 of world population of about 1.67 Billion people (about 500 million)?
– the seasonal flu kills hundreds of thousands of people world wide every year in spite of having multiple flu vaccines available.
And yet we seem to have done quite fine without these.
Remember that the recovery rate is VERY high. Over 90% (about 92%) of all COVID-19 cases resolved themselves WITHOUT any assistance. Only the balance of 8%+ required hospitalization and a small portion of those required ICU and ventilation. I would not buy into all the fear.
I’m not saying to throw caution to the wind but to take what used to be customary precautions with any communicable disease, similar to handling the spread of the flu.
Again, as I have said previously, I disagree.
Equating this disease with any other, with the small data set currently in place, is naive. Previous variants we have data, this variant, we are still learning about. The Flu vaccine argument is an interesting choice, as the Flu shot every year is for previous years variant, not the current one, there is just hope that it will work on this variant.
You may end up correct, however, your rhetoric is still to be proven. History will prove whether we were too cautious, or not. Erring on the side of caution is prudent, but luckily there seems to be a growing group who argue that point and will allow us to see which opinion is more correct.
I know you disagree but what part are you disagreeing with? Are you disagreeing with any of the stats presented?
Or are you disagreeing that only a vaccine or cure can get us back to normal? If so, on what basis?
Keep in mind that history, both past and present, support the fact that many pandemics have been resolved without medical intervention needed for the long term.
(BTW, the amount of data at this point is overwhelming… there are 4.6 million people confirmed to have the virus, with 10’s of millions already tested world wide, over 10.7 million in the US alone…and in NYC it has been confirmed that over 25% have already been exposed…so the number impacted negatively is MUCH smaller than expected on a percentage basis… the alarming initial impact aside).
And comparison with the flu is most fitting…first on the fact that the impact is very similar… many that die of it die because of respiratory complications…no different. As for the vaccine, there already is talk about how this corona virus has mutated from the original, so what would make the success of this vaccine any better than for the flu viruses (many of which are also corona viruses, of which there are hundreds, if not thousands and any vaccine typically only covers a handful at a time)?
BTW, did you know that the 2019/2020 flu season that was already underway had started out to be feared to be one of the worst on record based on the case count (like 20187/2018), as reported by the CDC, just before COVID-19 made it big? But what happened to any and all those cases? Have you heard anyone being inflicted by the seasonal flu this year? Where did they are go?
(for context, the 2017/2018 flu season, about 61,000 people died with about 61 million being exposed, in the US alone, even WITH the use of a flu vaccine).
There is no rhetoric involved here. I am simply following the factual and verifiable data and trying to avoid all the media hype that intentionally leave out a lot of meaningful information, and there is PLENTY of both.
All I am saying is that history has proven time and again that these can resolve themselves without some unproven vaccine or cure. And given the impact of this virus is only somewhat more significant than a very bad flu season, is it even warranted?
I be glad to see your basis for thinking that only medicine can save us.
(BTW, I mean no disrespect, just in case it that is not clear).