Random Thoughts

The Canadian Ladies are carrying the load for the Canadian Olympic team, and, as the father of 3 amazing daughters, I am proud to see it. Maybe Canada has tripped into a new funding idea? Equally funding female athletics, since we seem to win in those areas? How about equal funding, because that is what is fair? Just saying. Oh, and don’t mention Women’s Beach Volleyball attire to Kerry from Squawkfox. You might get an earful (rightly so, of course).

The Canadian economy is undeniably losing jobs at present. The latest Labour Force Survey by Stats Canada reveals a staggering drop of 31,000 jobs, with a much more severe decline of 71,000 full-time positions over the past 12 months. Although there has been a 0.4% increase in the total number of hours worked during the same period, it is baffling why there are fewer jobs and yet more working hours.

Unemployment is up 0.1% to 6.9% (year over year), which is still lower than some of the darkest days of this century, it going up is never a perfect thing.

In my age group (the over 55 crowd) there are more jobs, but that is a bit mis-leading, because there are more of us (and luckily we brought jobs with us). Fewer folks are working in the Public Sector as well (the Private Sector is unchanged), but I keep saying it is better to have a strong Private Sector (in terms of employment).

My Writings for Week Ending August 12th

I didn’t write anything this week, or more precisely, I didn’t publish anything this week. I have a backlog of 245 started but unfinished works. I was thinking of publishing a poll and asking what you want me to write about, but feel free to leave a comment here saying what you’d like me to look into. This is not to say that I have not been active on Social Media (I am a Social Media Madman). As millennial age, the question of retiring early comes up, so my article How Do I Retire at 35 ? keeps getting a lot of reads.

Fun Graphic for the week

I would love to find a graphic for Canada like this, but it is fun to see who are the most rich folk in the U.S. of A., funny there is no Big Cajun Man mention there…

Let the games begin! Today the Rio Olympics start, and hopefully it will all go off relatively well. Speaking as a Montrealer that lived through the 1976 Olympics and the financial aftermath, hopefully Rio has not written a cheque that will take decades to pay off. I still remember seeing Lasse Viren running up Rockland Road during the Marathon.

I am on vacation this week, so I have been watching with a high level of confusion what is going on in the U.S.A.. There are even pundits claiming Mr. Trump might actually be trying to throw the election? Seems far-fetched, but I believe the main-stream media wants all of this, and would relish a Trump Presidency, just because folks would be watching the news every night! All we have in Canada is a shirtless PM wandering around caves, and then surfer PM appeared as well? #WTF?

Sometimes we forget the importance of taking time off, and as I get closer to retirement, I am starting to figure out, I am going to need to figure out how to enjoy myself, and not think about work. I learned when I got laid off, that nothing is that important at work (since the things I was worrying about the week before I got canned, didn’t matter 5 minutes after I got laid off). Learn to enjoy, and take time off, I am still figuring it out (maybe I will take up surfing?)

My Writings for Week Ending August 5th

I am on vacation this week, and I finally wrote my review of the one financial tool I keep using, even though the developers seem to have abandoned it, and I vent my frustration in Quicken 2016 Canadian Edition Review . Don’t buy it. Investor Junkie has a much more positive view on things in this review, but give this year a pass (unless you must get it).

A Money Thought

As usual Kerry from Squawkfox hits the nail on the head with this tweet.

Is there a name for the August long weekend in Ontario, not really, but here are a bunch of great financial posts

According to our friends at Stats Canada more Canadians are in Pensions (up by almost 1.2%), which surprised me. This would suggest all this palaver and gum-flapping about Canadians not having enough money to retire was just Media over-reaction, however if you read the report a little closer, there is a telling statement:

In 2014, just over 4,380,000 employees were in defined benefit pension plans, down 0.5% from 2013, and down 8.3% from a high of 4,776,000 in 1992. Defined benefit plans accounted for 70.0% of employees belonging to an RPP in 2014, a drop from 71.2% in 2013, and down from over 90% in the 1980s.

So the Defined Benefit Pension Plan is slowly dying off (except in the Public Sector) and the Defined Contribution (and the hybrid mutations of that concept) are where there is growth. This makes more sense, most private sector companies cannot afford a defined benefit pension system (whether the Government can afford their pension system remains to be seen).

For those of us with kids, that aren’t making too much, the new Child Tax Credit (CTC) just kicked in. The good news it is tax-free, but if you make too much money, you get nothing. There is an old (but still helpful) video from Preet about this exact topic at the end of this article.

My Writings for Week Ending July 22nd

In summer mode, I am actually accumulating more unfinished titles in my writing pile, but What is Couch Potato Investing? came up as a question a co-worker (who is an occasional reader) asked me what it meant, and to my surprise I have talked about the topic a lot, but I have never really given as simple overview of what it meant, so there it was. I have written about the concepts of Couch Potato investing, but this article let’s folks understand the basics (I hope).

A Money Thought

Given Mr. Trump is now the Republican Candidate for the President, I have been researching some of his more interesting quotes, I like this one from “Trump University Entrepreneurship 101: How to Turn Your Idea into a Money Machine”

If you’re not satisfied with the status quo in your career, read this book, pick one key idea, and implement it. I guarantee it will make you money. —Donald J. Trump

I am reading the book for free on-line, so I feel I am already ahead of the game (i.e. I saved money by not buying the book).

How will Brexit affect the Canadian economy (the UK leaving it, in specific)? Could be good, could be bad.