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Tuesday, November 13, 2007
All Negative, All the Time
It appears the Toronto Star editors can’t make up their mind on where they stand (much like their Liberal Party bosses), causing them to flip-flop on their positions. Or perhaps they just like to take the negative side on every issue? Maybe it’s a bit of both?
Last week, the Canadian Dollar was finishing a rapid rise in value relative to every major currency around the world. Any economist will tell you that there are both good and bad sides to this story.
To tell us all about the negative side, the Toronto Star issued an editorial entitled “Bank’s job to cool overheated dollar”.
After months of articles and opinion pieces telling how the rising loonie will cripple the Canadian economy, and calls for the Harper government and the Bank of Canada to do something to slow the rise of the dollar, the opinion of editors at The Star seems pretty clear–they think the dollar’s rise is bad news.
But wait! In the past 2 days, the Canadian dollar has given back some of those gains! Today, The Star gives us a different story.
That was the biggest one-day stumble in at least 36 years, since daily changes have been recorded.
So why the negative tone and pessimistic words? Given the past columns and editorials out of the pages of The Star, shouldn’t this be good news? Where is all the flowery positive language to tell us this is what they’ve been asking for? Shouldn’t the editors be reporting the drop as the best thing to happen to the Canadian economy since Paul Martin?
Of course not! The Toronto Star: Always Negative, All the Time.
Cross-posted at www.exactlyright.ca.
Posted by Dave Hodson on November 13, 2007 | Permalink
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Comments
The Red Star would have taken opposite positions if DeYawn was in power as all this took place. Why would anyone take this Liberal mouthpiece seriously any longer? They have blown all their credibility on the altar of partisanship.
Posted by: obc | 2007-11-13 8:17:44 AM
The Toronto Star. Always useless;all the time; except for lining kitty-litter boxes.
Now why is that?
Good for soaking up....
Posted by: Lady | 2007-11-13 8:28:38 AM
And you can be sure that this story will not hit the Red Star's front page (or anywhere in that rag) because it might make some Muslims "uncomfortable":
"Gays should be hanged, says Iranian minister"
Homosexuals deserve to be executed or tortured and possibly both, an Iranian leader told British MPs during a private meeting at a peace conference, The Times has learnt.
Mohsen Yahyavi is the highest-ranked politician to admit that Iran believes in the death penalty for homosexuality after a spate of reports that gay youths were being hanged.
President Ahmadinejad, questioned by students in New York two months ago about the executions, dodged the issue by suggesting that there were no gays in his country.
Britain regularly challenges Iran about its gay hangings, stonings and executions of adulterers and perceived moral criminals, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) papers show.
The latest row involves a woman hanged this June in the town of Gorgan after becoming pregnant by her brother. He was absolved after expressing his remorse. Britain said that this demonstrated the unequal treatment of men and women in law and breached Iran’s pledge to restrict the death penalty to the most serious crimes.
A series of reported executions of gays, including two underage boys whose public hanging was posted on the internet, has alarmed human rights campaigners.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article2859606.ece
Leftoids fail to realize who the true enemy of Western civilization is. They still think it's George W. And the Enemedia backs them up on this because they too are Leftoids!
Posted by: obc | 2007-11-13 8:36:59 AM
Red Star's Travers writes this am that Dion should
"sit back and just wait" -what he does not say, the little Fart has been sitting back and waiting since he was about sixteen. Dion is on death row in the Liberal Party who are obviously getting desperate
-Liberal MP's have been sending out Christmas Greetings, which they call "Season's GreetingS"
which means to me that the quickly fading Red Machine is expecting a Federal Election. Red Star is not to be taken seriously -it has all the credibility of a journalistic brothel, but the
Globe and Mail Plus slovenly CTV is much worse.Jeez, Puffy Duffy was on live with Kinsella
last night attempting to secure Duffy's Senate Seat, by slashing and cutting Brian Mulroney ex
Lobbyist -fact is of course Mulroney as PM could not influence Air Canada to buy Aerospatiale Airbus commercial carriers which were chosen by the then President and Board of Air Canada on technical merit and price -in 1988 to 1999 the
excellent Airbus aircraft were brand new innovative state of the art commercial passenger
dollar earners. Boeing Commercial aircraft at the
time quickly realized they were faced with real competition in the coming decades, which continues as I write this. Macleod
Posted by: Jack Macleod | 2007-11-13 8:47:45 AM
The print media, like the 6 o'clock news, is irrelevant.
Posted by: epsilon | 2007-11-13 8:52:01 AM
I would like to agree with you but you are wrong, the Red Star and the Six O'Clock news are the only sources of News for millions in Ontario especially
in the GTA. The Red Star has been focused on the carefully manipulated Socialist Horde and Liberal
voters for many decades. The construction guys who worked for us in Toronto, all immigrants read the
Red Star and the Sun on an almost daily basis. In those days I bought the Star to read the late Scott Young's excellent Film Reviews. Knew a lot of people in the Star Building just down the street from us, and often joined them for lunch in their cafeteria -in those days Red Star management were always in some sort of fight with their many craft and labor unions. Macleod
Posted by: Jack Macleod | 2007-11-13 9:20:48 AM
MacLeod is right, the Red Star is basically a 'local rag' for GTA commies. There are about forty federal seats in that area which are left and will likely remain left no matter what.
If the Standard, other bloggers and some radio hosts, didn't mention the Red Star and it's nonsense, it would have even less influence.
I mean to say, they don't talk about the North Bay Daily Nugget so why should they talk about the Red Star. Both rags of local interest only. Except I think the Nugget is a much better paper.
Posted by: John | 2007-11-13 9:45:52 AM
The problem with the Red Star is that they have bought out many local papers in Ontario outside of the GTA. The Hamilton Spectator and the Kitchener-Waterloo Record are just two that come to mind. The editorial content of these two reflect the Red Star in every respect. Outside of one or two pages of local news, the rest is filled with Red Star articles and columns.
As these are local papers, many readers take their content at face value as they continue to presume they were written locally.
Posted by: atric | 2007-11-13 10:21:08 AM
The Red Star should employ the odd economist for commentary. Even an Econ 101 student can tell them why the value of a currency fluctuates.
Posted by: DML | 2007-11-13 11:02:24 AM
"The Red Star should employ the odd economist"
Most economists are odd - including my brother-in-law! :)
Posted by: obc | 2007-11-13 11:18:25 AM
The other day, I read a new term for the MSM in this country.
"Lickspittle" Media.
Posted by: Sounder | 2007-11-13 11:26:35 AM
I kinda like the Enemedia or the drive-by media.
Posted by: obc | 2007-11-13 11:31:49 AM
And in the US today, the Clinton Camp has threatened the questioners for the upcoming Las Vegas debate:
CNN's Wolf Blitzer has been warned not to focus Thursday's Dem debate on Hillary. 'This campaign is about issues, not on who we can bring down and destroy,' top Clinton insider explains. 'Blitzer should not go down to the levels of character attack and pull 'a Russert.' Blitzer is set to moderate debate from Vegas, with questions also being posed by Suzanne Malveaux.
Can you imagine the outcry from the Enemedia if a Republican candidate issued such a warning???
Posted by: obc | 2007-11-13 12:15:10 PM
PP ~
You must be a delight to live with - what with all that bile stored up in you.
Or perhaps that's why NO ONE wants to live with you. That venom is a sure sign of an angry and lonely individual. Get some professional help before you implode, pal.
Posted by: obc | 2007-11-13 12:47:56 PM
I agree with Epsi. There are fewer and fewer spending their money on such useless rags and this is no likely to change.
Others can do as they like but I suggest ignoring PP who has qualified himself as a troll. Otherwise it is giving jam to pigs as we say in French.
Posted by: Alain | 2007-11-13 1:15:32 PM
Alain ~
. . . and with the way the teachers' union is educating the next generation, fewer adults will be reading anything more complicated than Dick & Jane books.
Posted by: obc | 2007-11-13 1:18:50 PM
PP ~
You obviously don't know the difference between bile and ridicule.
And anyone who disagrees with your Leftoid views is spewing hatred - in your view.
Better not let your comrades in the Party find out that you are in FAVOUR of profit. They might kick you out of the organization.
Posted by: obc | 2007-11-13 1:21:49 PM
The Toronto Star commenting on matters related to economics is just so darn cute. It makes their tiny heads explode when there really are two sides to a story and they don't have to fabricate one.
Posted by: Brian Mallard | 2007-11-13 1:42:13 PM
Where is our friend who counselled investing in the US three or four months ago? Empires rise and fools bring them to their knees.
Posted by: munroe | 2007-11-13 2:14:51 PM
Ahhhh yes .......... his name was Mallard.
Posted by: Munroe | 2007-11-13 2:16:25 PM
Canadian car workers are losing their jobs by the thousands as a result of a dip in the US economy - and the union thug finds pleasure in the US not doing quite as well as before.
Union thugs like marilyn try to find their small pleasures wherever they can, I guess.
Posted by: obc | 2007-11-13 2:22:44 PM
Actually Munroe, that is good advice. US financial and material assets are on sale right now owing to the recent devaluation.
Devalued US recreational real estate is being scooped up by Canadians over the last several months.
Epsi
Posted by: Epsilon | 2007-11-13 2:23:05 PM
Careful OBC. The next edition of "Fun with Dick and Jane" will have Jane an opressed housewife and Dick an abuser. Spot will have developed a mean streak from years of being allegedly sodomized by Dick.
They will all go to councelling where Dick's rage will be exposed, causing him to enter rehab and pay his entire paycheck to support Jane. Dick's name will be entered on the animal-abuse registry and he will be obliged to spend the rest of his days in a homeless shelter.Their children will go on to join PETA and enjoy a lifetime of living off government largesse.
Posted by: atric | 2007-11-13 4:09:38 PM
atric ~
:)
Posted by: obc | 2007-11-13 4:13:35 PM
Is this really such a surprise? Ontario is a negative society - regressive, oppressive and cruel. They've been a detriment to all those around them. Alberta's been subsidizing Ontario for decades. They're dependent on others to stay afloat. Even today, they're regressing back to a racially segregated state like the Jim Crow South and Apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia. Slavery will soon be next.
White Ontario is so spoiled rotten that they cannot see the consequences of their actions. It's like living in a large bubble. If only we could prevent them from leaving.
Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2007-11-13 4:16:59 PM
i remember the first time i read the Star. it was like being beaten over the head with Nerf baseball bats by depressed folk wearing black rimmed glasses who were, apparently, chastizing me for extolling capitalism, and accepting and loving human nature.
the beating was rather effete and weak; almost pitiful... but positively surreal.
when i put the paper down, i seemed to be lost in a subjective, warm damp and cloudy fairyland, and the people around me seemed to be either angels or devils.
i thought to myself, "so THIS is what it's like to see through the eyes of a social liberal".
...to bring myself back to reality, i had to chew tinfoil (which is an interesting experience when you have fillings).
Canada is enough of a "social democracy". what the hell more do they want?
i guess the Star will be happy when the Revolution is won, and then, only for a while. :)
Posted by: shel | 2007-11-13 4:59:17 PM
So Munroe you think that three months is sufficient duration to determine whether an investment policy is correct? Currency overvaluation, like the current Canadian dollar, will take a while to correct. Three months ago, the OECD indicated that the CDN$ was overvalued by about twenty percent. Given today's closing price, it is now about 30%. It was time to buy and it's now an even better time to buy.
When the dollar was trading at 62 cents relative to the USD in 2002, people "in the know" were saying that the only place to invest was outside of Canada. Over the course of the next five years it was the best and the dollar went on a rampage.
We positioned our clients to take advantage of that currency imbalance then and are doing the same thing today. I am putting it where my mouth is what are you doing?
Posted by: Brian Mallard | 2007-11-13 6:53:33 PM
Brian ~
marilyn is a Dipper union thug who doesn't have two cents to rub together. He hasn't a clue how the economy works.
Like all Leftoids, he just likes to gloat at any perceived American problems.
Posted by: obc | 2007-11-13 7:30:15 PM
obc: if he was a Dipper union thug, then he'd be loaded. He knows enough about the economy to manipulate it for his own ends. In other words, he can afford to be a leftie!
Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2007-11-13 7:54:27 PM
He has no money because like all socialists, he wastes it - knowing when the crunch come, he'll have some government programme off which he can sponge.
Posted by: obc | 2007-11-13 7:59:03 PM
Worse, he probably runs that government program.
Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2007-11-13 8:19:47 PM
Thanks for the info about munroe. A quote from Norman Mailer, "The function of socialism is to raise suffering to a higher level."
Posted by: Brian Mallard | 2007-11-13 8:54:42 PM
I wonder where O'Reilly went? Oh, he's probably rushed off, back to his ho, to get her to buy back into the American dollar--before she realizes he has sold her down the road to losing her shirt in a manner to which he did not have in mind in the first place.
Well, that is what happens when people listen to the leftists when it comes to money--they simply do NOT know what they are talking about--EVER!
If you listen to them long enough you will be convinced that American investment in Canada is a bad thing--when for crying out loud--it is a good thing. If they want to invest in emerging markets and more speculative deals--well that sounds about right to me--especially when they are paying for Canadians to do the work.
Let us get real here--the lefties MUST be kept away from the Canadian dollar--at all times. Whenever there is propinquity in relation to leftists and the dollar, people go bankrupt and our dollar takes a nose dive--unemployment increases like crazy and our credit rating goes down the toilet.
Posted by: Lady | 2007-11-14 9:31:00 AM
OK, Mallard, now that you have the "intellectuals" of the right weighing in....
I take it you never advised anyone to invest in the worthless paper in the "sub-prime". I take it it you love the industrial might of the US over, say, China. I take it you cautioned against over exposure in energy, especially oil. I understand you believe a high dollar in Canada is just great. I hear you discount the Euro.
I have a ticket for you, one you can get with enough airmiles. Paradise awaits and so do off shore banks (or those preferred by Tories in Switzerland).
If you can't see a declining empire then you have rose glasses at the calling. It's over.
Posted by: munroe | 2007-11-14 3:12:54 PM
The US is the largest economy in the world and still has enormous raw material supplies. Its proximity to Canada enhances this. China is reliant on others for raw materials. Anytime the rest of the world wants to cut China off, it can.
It is a stable democracy and a welcome home for capital. China is not. It could nationalize a company at the stroke of the pen. Or seize assets outright. It does not respect capital and especially intellectual capital and human capital.
The US is a clean and healthy place to live and getting cleaner by the year as is the rest of the civilized world. China is polluting itself to death. Already, no one wants food from China because it cannot pass health tests. And now no one wants its cheap plastic products because they are coated with toxins.
China will collapse under its own weight. It will create a health crisis from its poisoned environment and no one wants the products of that poisoned environment.
China's stock markets are ridiculously overvalued. Sub-prime is nothing compared to the stupid valuations on the Chinese exchanges. Watch the Chinese banks fold like a cheap hand once their markets correct. The US markets are now correcting. Their fiscal deficit has been closing. Watch for the trade deficits to close dramatically.
To summarize: China is doomed in the long run. The US will prevail. My money is on the US and Canada and I would be pulling $ out of China before its markets correct. And they will.
Epsi
Posted by: Epsilon | 2007-11-14 3:25:24 PM
I just love the smell of justice in the evening:
"Restaurant employees stop thief"
The Herald-Dispatch (Huntington W-VA)
A visiting attorney from Washington, D.C., and several employees at Jim's Steak and Spaghetti House at 920 5th Ave., held a man face down on the ground outside the restaurant until police came after he attempted to take the restaurant's earnings at about 9 p.m. Tuesday. Jackie L. Rakes, 32, of Nitro, was arrested and charged with grand larceny.
No! No!! NOT THE DREADED (gasp) vigilantes! Arrest them for making this poor fellow lose his self esteem!
http://www.herald-dispatch.com/homepage/x1231064775
Posted by: obc | 2007-11-14 8:16:57 PM
Lady - I wonder where O'Reilly went?
O'REILLY is in Australia, drinking Tooheys and having loads of fun. I will check the Shotgun periodically to have a laugh at your incoherent babbling.
Posted by: O'REILLY | 2007-11-14 9:31:42 PM
Lady is more than capable of defending herself. but there is NOBODY here that presents more researched, literate and passionate expressions of opinion than Lady.
She is a class above us all and agree or not, you would be a better man for having read her wise words. Too bad you are not man enough to admit that O'REILLY.
Epsi
Posted by: epsilon | 2007-11-14 10:21:29 PM
Munroe, I actually stayed away from “sub-prime” lending vehicles both directly and indirectly. I have a problem with companies that provide financing to people without the means to repay it. This was obvious to anybody who examined some of the more creative financing facilities that debt issuers were designing. BTW, these were created to capture some of the risk adverse global money chasing so called risk free yield. I learned a long time ago that there is no such thing as a risk free investment. Most of the sub prime was purchased by countries in the ME awash in cash from the recent uptick in energy revenues.
I do like the US from an investment perspective over China but not because of some blind zealotry. China has a number of negatives from an investment perspective. An aging work force and a low birth rate along with a skew in the gender balance. In other words, they will get old before they can become the world economic power that some speculate. Historically, almost the same demographics were in place prior to the implosion of the Japanese economy almost twenty tears ago. China has established the basis of their economy on an imbalanced currency, deciding it is advantageous to be able control its value relative to the USD. This will work in the short term but sooner or later those ducks (probably Mallards) will come home to roost. China also has an aversion to democracy and still subscribes to too much central planning. This has never worked long term. If you are looking for an emerging economy that has much better economic and political factors try India.
Nowhere did I state that I believe a high dollar in Canada is just great. This is a pure fabrication on your part. It is one factor that currently makes investment in Canada unattractive and the US attractive. Your statement that I must leave the country because of my investment perspective is laughable. I would suggest that you have some difficulty with reality when it intrudes on your rabid anti-American perspective. You know, if Americans were a race of people with a specific color to their skin, exhibiting this type of bias would make you a racial bigot. Instead I would suggest that you are “nation” bigot.
Posted by: Brian Mallard | 2007-11-15 10:49:14 AM
Brian:
What's your take on investing in US real estate now ... with the depressed prices, is it a bargain?
What about US resort property, which Canadians can take advantage of.
Obviously, a high Canadian dollar makes it more difficult for our manufacturing sector, but let me give you one example about how Canadians are being gouged.
Acuras, which are totally manufactured in Canada, have a sticker price 20% lower in the US. The same goes for Bombardier products.
Good to see somebody here whose conversant on economic issues. You did manage to peg munroe pretty quickly.
Posted by: set you free | 2007-11-15 11:09:58 AM
Pegging marilyn is like stepping on a cockroach - effortless.
Posted by: obc | 2007-11-15 11:13:49 AM
I'm sure the Red Star would not approve of this:
"Boy, 15, gets 60 years for St.Louis County sex attack of girl, 6"
CLAYTON -- A judge sentenced to 60 years in prison this morning a teenager who had pleaded guilty of kidnapping, beating and sexually assaulting a neighbor in Spanish Lake on Nov. 11, 2005, when he was 13 and she was 6.
St. Louis County Circuit Judge Melvyn W. Wiesman imposed the sentence on Sherman Burnett Jr., now 15 and the youngest inmate ever housed in the county jail.
In imposing the lengthy sentence -- Burnett will be ineligible for parole until the year 2058, when he is 66 -- Wiesman rejected confining Burnett in a juvenile offender program in Montgomery City, Mo., where Burnett could have gotten a chance at probation at the age of 21.
Testimony this morning disclosed that Burnett had blamed, in part, the 6-year-old for his own misfortune and had denied any sexual assaults in a recent interview with a state employee, even though he had pleaded guilty on Aug. 10 of sodomy and attempted rape, along with child kidnapping and assault.
MAYBE HE'LL SOON FIND out how awful the crime of rape is, now that he's in jail. Of course in Canada, he'd probably get "house arrest" for a year if he promised to behave.
Posted by: obc | 2007-11-15 1:26:15 PM
I am not sure all of the pain from the collapse of the housing bubble has been realized yet. There could still be some down side. That being said, I think one also has to weigh the impact of the overpriced CDN$ into this situation. If it is overvalued by 25 to 30 percent, one has to evaluate whether there is that much downside left in the real estate investment. Residential investment real estate has different characteristics from resort real estate. To a certain extent, it is less price volatile because of different customer demand pressure. Sometimes supply is also curtailed because of local government restrictions. I am not a big proponent of real estate as an investment. It has bad tax attributes, mixed usage and long tem returns have been as good as other investment asset classes given the risks associated with it.
Posted by: Brian Mallard | 2007-11-15 3:07:52 PM
Last sentence should read "It has bad tax attributes, mixed usage and long term returns have not been as good as other investment asset classes given the risks associated with it."
Posted by: Brian Mallard | 2007-11-15 5:29:08 PM
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