marlon menezes wrote:
> A moderating factor is that both Australia and Canada have balanced govt.
> budgets
> while their households have positive savings rates. Still, if I had property
> in Australia's
> eastern cities, I would sell NOW. Ditto for anyone living in Vancouver. The
> prices
> there are simply not sustainable.
Marlon,
The current govt in Canada is a minority conservative one. You know what that
means.
The conservatives, as usual, are running huge budget deficits. This follows
huge budget
surpluses left by the last socialist govt.
Regardless, Canada remains a socialist country. Its banking regulations are now
the envy
of the world. I need not remind you what happened in the unregulated banking
environment
of the US or what happened to their shareholders. I do, however, feel a
little pity for those
who found out that their retirement money was invested in those financial
institutions.
What is Citibank trading at? 10% of what it traded a year ago?
As far as housing prices in Canada are concerned, the Bank of Canada
is actively warning
people that they have all the necessary regulations in place to halt the
rising cost of
purchasing property. In case you are not aware of it, in Canada, housing loans
are 'with
recourse.' This means that if you default on a loan, the bank will come
after all other assets
that you own. Residents in Canada have to think much more seriously than those
in, say,
the USA where, because house loans are 'non-recourse' when you default on a
house loan,
all that the financial institution can hope to recover is the house itself.
This exposes the
financial institutions to horrendous risks, which they are now displaying on
their balance
sheets.
> By the end of this decade, if not earlier, we should see large swaths of the
>world where
> wind and solar will become the cheapest form of energy, without subsidies. In
> fact in
> Europe and the US, the MAJORITY of new energy capacity that is currently
> being added
> is in the renewable sector. Finally, one cannot ignore China. It is already
> the world's largest
> solar and wind producer and based on current trends it is only a few years
> before the majority
> of its new added capacity will be based on renewables as well.
China is already years ahead of the west in renewable energy technology. Take a
look at the share
prices of their renewable energy companies. If those number do not convince
you, nothing will.
Just a few days ago, Canada paid a South Korean firm BILLIONS of dollars to
bring their technology
to, and manufacture it in Canada.
The bottom line is that some will debate global warming here forever. The
numbers, the numbers that
mean everything, are those of the share prices of the companies involved with
renewable energy.
The rest is nothing but hot air.
Mervyn1065Lobo
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