Today a story came out where Jeff Rubin has forecasted the stock market will be at 11,000 by year end.  I know that everyone is not ready for over inflated forecasts right now, BUT if you allow your mind to open slightly to the possibility his arguments have some rationality to them.  Time will of course tell…

Gimme a break.  Don’t you just want to scream at a banker?  This latest spin doctering by the bank brass says “Business is as usual”.  RBC’s CEO says “nothing is out of the ordinary…”

I guess no one told him about bank spreads higher then ever before in history.  Or what about the cut in available credit in the last Canada Mortgage Bond Issue that means only the best of the best get insured mortgages these days, oh and what about variable interest rates going from deep discounts below prime to premiums of up to .75% above prime.  Maybe his people are hiding from him that they are cutting or demanding lines of credit from small business people who are current.  Oh and of course the fact that the banks are not matching the Bank of Canada’s trend setting rate to be a part of the solution in the recovery…

Gimme a break, now I remember why I sometimes hate bankers

As a consumer of travel parity of course is nice, but wishing for that is the same as when we were all wishing Gas Prices were at .70 cents instead of a $1.30 earlier last year, how does it feel now that that wish came true?

The same may happen if the Canadian dollar reaches parity, due to a falling US dollar.  Why?  Well for starters as we are trying to recover from the slowdown  the last thing we need is the inflationary presure that a strong Canadian dollar brings as this slows interest cuts or worse makes it necessery to raise interest rates.  The second bad thing is the pressure it puts on many bsinesses that export their goods, which when they are all teetering on the brink of disaster now, what could that do those businesses and more importantly the jobs.

China is poised to maybe dump some of their $1.3 TRILLION dollars of short term debt, and they are saying they may not be in much of a position to pick up some of the $800 BILLION Obama dollars coming soon in a US budget deficit.  Who else will buy Obama’s debt offering?  Doesn’t matter but if demand to buy it is low which it will likely be and the US printing more money, combined with China dumping US dollars MAY tank the US dollar by year end.

For the reasons above this could slow our recovery some more…sigh.  Whatever you do, PLEASE don’t wish for the Canadian dollar to have parity has your collective Karmic forces may make it happen and then you will feel like you do right now about your wishes for gas prices to fall…

I have been thinking about this for a while…We are technically in Canada now entering likely a technical recession (remember class the definition of a recession is two quarters of negative growth).  For review the US has been in a technical recession for all four quarters of 2008, and in Canada although the numbers are not out yet it appears the fourth quarter of 2008 may be negative, and likely the first one or two quarters of 2009 may also be, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Anyway the part that is weird and perplexing for me is all the abbundance that is still out there?  For instance both WestJet and Air Canada defied the ’stalling economy’ and brutal weather and reported RECORD load numbers for the second month in a row in December.

Last night I went out with a good friend for a couple of pints and the bar we were in was absolutely jammed and boisterous.

Earlier this weekI was at The Keg on a Tuesday night and the restaurant was jammed.  OnFriday night we were at Earls and there was still a 45 minute wait for a table and the lounge was jammed.

Going into Costco, superstore, safeway, et al on a weekend is still an exercise in insanity.

Malls?  Are you kidding me, the parking lots mid week, in the evening are still extremely busy.

Talking with a bunch of other Dads, at our 7:45 am practice this morning (why is it always only the Dads who are at 7:45 am practices??) and everone was talking about the holidays they booked, and where they were going skiing, and european vacations in the summer?

What’s the point of all this?  WHERE is the RECESSION?  When are people going to act like there is one?  Listen I know there has been some adjustments, particularly on major purchases, but if you think about it many people are still going about their life, certainly they are more aware of what they are doing, which ultimately I guess is great and what corrections/slowdowns are meant to do.

Post comments on this as i am interested in a conversation over what peoples thoughts are on this phenomenon