Canada ,Sweet Land of Hope,hard work and Prosperity

[holdfast]

Canada, Sweet Land of Hope, Hard Work and Prosperity

by Charles Adler

October 27/08

 

 

The Loonie has been going south. Unfortunately, confidence in our dollar and our country has been going in the same direction. I don't know whether I can make you feel more confident. But I hope you will allow me to try. I am not asking you for your money. I am asking you for what's most precious…Your time.

 

The reason our dollar is wounded is not complicated. World markets are suffering indigestion and many mutual fund managers have decided that the best Pepto-Bismol of all is the U.S. Treasury Bill. It yields almost no interest. However, it is as solid as the Rock of Gibraltar and it is where much of the nervous capital is being parked right now. The purchase of these bills drives up the value of the U.S. greenback and drives virtually all others down. The English Pound is getting pounded, The Chinese Yuan is getting stomped on and in Canada, Oh Canada we stand on guard for our loonie is flying at a low altitude for the moment.

 

However, once the markets start to right themselves, the same managers who purchased the t-bills will realize the financial stomach is no longer in a state of peptic dysfunction and they will sell those Greenbacks in a New York minute. It will give the loonie a lift and we will go back up above 80 cents and likely, back up to ninety before much too long. However in the meantime, we have vultures with a lot of media access who want to use the temporary plight of the loonie to pluck our national confidence. While the vultures prey on weakness and want to mark down Canada, we have a right to Mark Twain them. "Reports of my demise are exaggerated," said the man who created characters that animated the imaginations of millions for generations. Exaggeration is something he understood could be a weapon for good and for the opposite. These days exaggeration is being employed to make us want to surrender the future by telling us that we are going to be plunged into a depression as bad or worse than our grandparents or our great grandparents experienced at the end of the 19th century and in the third decade of the 20th. Exaggeration these days is where the vultures live. We don't have to make their address, our address.

 

Canadians have many reasons to be confident about their financial system and the long term prospect for our economy and our currency. While the U.S. feels the need to strengthen small banks by feeding them like hamburgers to the big ones, we have no such issue here. We have almost nothing but big banks. And, you know which ones they are. It's where your money is. Unlike many of the American and European banks, ours have not been operated by card sharks and so they are not casinos.

 

We also have some old fashioned rules that have been working rather well to keep our real estate prices relatively stable. Rules like requiring prospective home owners to put real money down before being able to purchase a home. Because we don't have a U.S. style tax system that discourages us from building up equity in that home, many of us actually own our own homes. The American system allows you to deduct the interest on the mortgage you pay each month. So you don't have much incentive to build up equity. You just pay and keep paying the juice on a very large amount of money because you can deduct the juice when you pay your taxes. That encourages people to buy more house than they need and not build up equity and therefore savings in their houses. When times are very good, this can work to promote a lot of real estate growth and for years that's what happened. But when you create a bubble through having too many houses, with not much equity in them by the person responsible for paying the mortgage and then you have bankers selling the risk on these mortgages to others and not keeping track of who owes what to whom, you get chaos.

 

If only the prices for houses had kept on going up by ten to twenty to thirty percent per year forever this housing crisis wouldn't have happened. But just like you cannot repeal the law of gravity, you cannot repeal the law of supply and demand and when you create so called exotic instruments like derivatives and credit default swaps you have what one of the richest men on earth Warren Buffett calls “Weapons of Mass Economic Destruction,” which is what we have had. The Americans talk about home ownership. But it's clear as a bell that when you have no equity in a home because all you’ve been doing every month is paying the juice on the mortgage, if the value of the home drops like a rock, you have no incentive to keep paying the juice, and since you put almost no money down to buy the home, you have no reason to stay in it. Pick up the keys banker. I am so out of here. That's the American scenario right now. Does it sound anything like our own? It does not and it will not. We play by different rules and they protect the most important asset in our lives, our HOMES.

 

Just as the banks in the U.S. have been turned into gambling parlors, many ordinary Americans who did have some equity in their homes have taken out home equity loans. They received money from the banks based on the equity had. Many used the money to buy stuff they didn't really need and stocks they no longer want. And yes, they do have to keep paying the juice on the money borrowed to buy stocks that are going down instead of up. Many Americans have bet the ranch, the farm, the bungalow and the dog house on the stock market. Any wonder why so many are angry enough to roll the dice on a presidential candidate with as much leadership experience as your twelve-year-old? Any wonder why they are willing to paste and punish any candidate for any office that is contaminated with the word Republican beside their name? Any wonder why they are about to vote themselves a White House, a House of Representatives and a Senate where the Democratic Party will have unbridled power? Any wonder why they are ready to throw out their general desire for divided government, creating checks and balances to presidential or congressional power?

 

In this country, in a recent election, Canadians had the option to punish every Conservative for the current decline of the World Economy. But we chose not to do that. We made the right choice.

 

Folks it's difficult to see the sun when you feel that you are buried in the deep pit of despair, and when you have many folks with media platforms engaging in predatory behavior. Preying on your fears and insecurities and in some cases preying on the sheer blind ignorance of the massive wealth that this country literally has inside its soil. Because of the abundance in the ground and the knowledge we have in our heads, we have a country that will continue to walk tall among the nations of the earth.

 

Maybe we need to be reminded once in a while about our millions of acres of timber and grains and the vast pools of oil and gas, potash and uranium and all the other minerals that the world needs to feed and heat itself. It's true that minerals do not create a steely spine, which is what many of us need to develop right now. The question is asked everywhere in Canada. Will commodities come back? Does a bear eliminate in the woods? It's true that The Stock Market Bear wants to eliminate everywhere and over everything. But that too will pass.

 

The doom and gloom spinners that have your attention right now can corrode confidence. They can lease fear. But they cannot own and can never conquer TIME.

 

Time always marches forward. Tomorrow can never be yesterday. Renewal of days and weeks and seasons give us hope. The doom and gloom crowd always wants you to believe that the distant future is even worse than the recent past. They will always find numbers to justify the equation. But their arithmetic adds up to failure of spirit if you permit it. If you allow them to beat you with their numbers, you are surrendering to the worst kind of defeat there is. A defeat with no sense of purpose, no positive outcome and worst of all, no honour.

 

Time marches forward. That's why it's called Progress. The history of human achievement is based on Progress. The forces of darkness have always been committed to the opposite. They want you to stop believing in the future and ultimately in yourself. Although I have mentioned the incredible resources this country is awash in, the most important and ultimately the best resource we have is our people, many of whom have been through tough times in this country and elsewhere.

 

I grew up with many of these folks, survivors who in the end could not extinguish their memories of Communism and Fascism, the twin towers of darkness that crushed so many members of their families. I grew up with people who weren't just frightened by stock market numbers and unemployment numbers. They were terrified and terrorized and traumatized by having people they knew shot, imprisoned, tortured, and executed. The mauling of the markets pale in comparison with the massacre of millions of people who just happened to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time in history.

 

We are living history right now and we will be talking about these times for a long time. But we have a choice. We can make hope and progress our friends or we can do as we are being urged to do, to throw up our hands and declare to our friends and families that the sun has set on our hopes and dreams, and will never rise again.

 

I'm asking you as just one ordinary Canadian with extraordinary access to you and your mind. Don't let them win. Don't cave to the cave dwellers. Don't cave to the forces of darkness. Don't give them everything they want. Your confidence, your hopes, your dreams don't belong to them. They are yours as long as you choose to hold on to them.

 

There is a name for the person who only believes in defeat. Don't make it yours.

 

This is the greatest country on earth and you are alive to share it with me and more than 33 million others.

 

You may not feel it every day. And you may not feel it right now. But I have to tell you that based on where I came from and where I have been and what I have seen and who and what I have known, I can tell you that every day I wake up in Canada, I feel that I am the luckiest person on earth. Forget about lottery tickets, my Canadian Passport is my winning ticket.

 

For so many in this country, we see it as the Passport to the Promised Land. You may not see it that way at this precise moment in time. But some day when this storm blows over, don't forget where you were on Monday October 27th, when you had a choice to make between Confidence and Despair. Confidence always feels like the toughest choice during a violent storm. But it's the only ticket worth punching. I have never been a more confident Canadian than I am right now. Thanks for listening to my head and my heart.

 

Oh Canada, we stand on Guard for Thee, Sweet Land of Hope, Hard work and Prosperity.

[Roy]

WOW! So you found an adler snippet. You might want to investigate what the dude with the golden pen and the crippled mind has to say about our beloved country sometime. Good on ya for using Google. Y'know holdie, I, as most Canadians feel good about themselves because we have good neighbours. I don't need to prey on my neighbours' temporary financial problem to make me feel good. Maybe you do...

 

You have a lot of hate in you. Try to get over it.

[irishfield]

[holdfast]

WOW! So you found an adler snippet. You might want to investigate what the dude with the golden pen and the crippled mind has to say about our beloved country sometime. Good on ya for using Google. Y'know holdie, I, as most Canadians feel good about themselves because we have good neighbours. I don't need to prey on my neighbours' temporary financial problem to make me feel good. Maybe you do...

 

You have a lot of hate in you. Try to get over it.

 

What are you trying to start Roy? Absolutely no Hate here, as well as preying on the South. As a matter of fact is the point here is that as bad as it is to our neighbors, there is no need to go into a panic here. Its called having faith in our system. Also I may add, also our neighbors. They are not as stupid as the media down your way make them out to be either. The Americans are my brothers, as unlike you, I have served along side of them. Again I will Repeat my point here. Have faith in our system. That is my point. If you see it as an American criticism, I see it as a comparison. That's all Roy ole boy.

 

One last thing. If any AMERICAN finds this offensive . I will go on record and APOLIGISE. Especially to Tennessee guy. Roy have a beer and mellow out as your always on my case.

Edited October 31, 2008 by holdfast

[Roy]

I rest my case. Thanks for clearing that up holdie. Night.

[holdfast]

Thanks

[Greencoachdog]

I think watching a DYI dentistry vid would be more interesting than reading that boring drivvel.

Edited October 31, 2008 by GCD

[2 tone z71]

I think watching a DYI dentistry vid would be more interesting than reading that boring drivvel.

[holdfast]

I think watching a DYI dentistry vid would be more interesting than reading that boring drivvel.

Thats why it wasnt meant for you!!!!!!!!!!! Mostly for guys like me thats watching my small retirement savings

( Hopefully to sustain my fishing) go down the tubes. After reading it, its only helping me not to panic and think longer term. Hopefully its Tempory because I know Greed is Permanent so hopefully my savings will rebound to make my dream of being morgage free a reallity. Im off to my camping trip in Manitoba now, hopefully Ill have some pics when I get back.

[OhioFisherman]

No offense to me stuff happens! 1 in 5 Americans now owes more on their home than it is worth. Homes weren`t meant to be piggy banks, no matter what the bankers tell you. An investment you try to keep! Poor choices made in borrowing and lending.

 

The way jobs are disappearing here I see no quick fix.

[Gerritt]

I find it funny how Canadians continue to call American money "Greenbacks"

 

However, once the markets start to right themselves, the same managers who purchased the t-bills will realize the financial stomach is no longer in a state of peptic dysfunction and they will sell those Greenbacks in a New York minute.

 

The Greenback was/is a completely different currency then the one that is currently in circulation in the USA (Federal Reserve Note)

 

If a news reporter is going to bash our neighbors to the south perhaps knowing what their currency is would be a good idea.

 

G

[Paulus]

 

politics and the economy?!?!?!?! HERE????!!!

 

I have my own thoughts, but there must be a political/economic forum out there? All we're going to tell you here is more of the same. "It wasn't meant for you".... too true, too true. Took a wrong turn at Albuquerque?

 

Please. I beg you. My fellow Ontarians and Canadians. Let's do more of this

 

And less of this

 

p.-

 

p.s. stay the course & you'll be fine -- markets did the same thing on 9/11

p.p.s.

[TennesseeGuy]

No static from me on this one. I'm not offended by anything on the thread. I'm living in a house that was new and affordable when purchased in 1972. I made a 20% down payment and paid off the mortgage a few years early. No government program needed for TG. Never made much money, but living on less than I take in has made my life rich.

[Hotrod2066]

I don't see it as American bashing at all, just explaining the differences in our economies and all the "sky is falling" reporting that goes on in the media. If I want to hear American bashing I just turn on anything that the CBC puts out.

[Greencoachdog]

Thats why it wasnt meant for you!!!!!!!!!!! Mostly for guys like me thats watching my small retirement savings

( Hopefully to sustain my fishing) go down the tubes.

 

You need to invest a little more wisely... buy U.S. dollars!!!

[Fisherman]

Rather than buying anything that we want but don't actually need, I think everyone who owes anything should be buying down their own debt. If you don't have the means, quit squandering just to keep up with the rest of the fools. I didn't buy my toys until I stepped out of the tunnel, never mind seeing the light at the end of it, that's just the train full of bankers that keep feeding you credit that you can't afford. Everyone wants a 52" plasma screen, a this, a that, but hasn't got the pot to pizz in or the window to throw it out of. A little bit of self control works wonders, never mind trying to figure out which new credit card is going to pay off the last one you maxed out.

[2 tone z71]

Rather than buying anything that we want but don't actually need, I think everyone who owes anything should be buying down their own debt. If you don't have the means, quit squandering just to keep up with the rest of the fools. I didn't buy my toys until I stepped out of the tunnel, never mind seeing the light at the end of it, that's just the train full of bankers that keep feeding you credit that you can't afford. Everyone wants a 52" plasma screen, a this, a that, but hasn't got the pot to pizz in or the window to throw it out of. A little bit of self control works wonders, never mind trying to figure out which new credit card is going to pay off the last one you maxed out.

 

amen the mans right on the money here

[OhioFisherman]

LOL Fisherman, when I met my wife all I had in the house was a 13 inch black and white tv. She was sort of shocked, I told her you think I sit here and watch tv?

 

My house is sort of modest, but paid for, after 18 years I even have a porch! LOL

 

Never let your eyes get bigger than your paycheck.

[bigugli]

Never let your eyes get bigger than your paycheck.

 

It's my wife's eyes that are bigger than my paycheque