Early signal that Canada’s Q4 GDP will be disappointing?

October vehicle sales were down 0.3%, not a huge amount but it still amounts to a continuation of a trend that began emerging in September. Canada’s economy has stalled – in fact aside for Quebec, vehicle sales were off in every province with Alberta the winner at -8%.

One question not addressed here, is the change in VAT tax in certain provinces, which may have accelerated vehicle purchase in the summer of 2010 to take advantage of the lower tax level.

Although the figures are not seasonally adjusted, in 2007, 2008 and 2009, vehicle sales actually rose in the closing months of the year (it makes sense as dealers try to unload “previous years’ model”). Anyway, September was flat and October was down slightly (against trend).

Ok so I lied...a little (revised)

When we began looking at farming in 2013/14 as something we both wanted to do as a "second career" we invested time and money to understand what sector of farming was profitable. A few things emerged, First, high-quality, source-proven, organic farm products consistently have much higher profit margins. Secondly, transformation accounted for nearly 80% of total profits, and production and distribution accounted for 20% of profits: Farmers and retailers have low profit margins and the middle bits make all the money. A profitable farm operation needs to be involved in the transformation of its produce. The low-hanging fruits: cheese and butter. Milk, generates a profit margin of 5% to 8%, depending on milk quality. Transformed into cheese and butter, and the profit margin rises to 40% (Taking into account all costs). Second: 20% of a steer carcass is ground beef quality. The price is low, because (a) a high percentage of the carcass, and (b)...

Spray painting Taylor Swift G650 aircraft (updated)

First, a bit of paint will not harm anyone. These climate activities are going to learn two things in the next few days: (1) Trespassing at an airport is a felony almost anywhere in the world. That means criminal prosecution. (2) removing paint from an aircraft is expensive. So these climate activists are about to find out the reach of the British criminal system and it will not be pleasant, the UK has very strict laws about that, I would be surprised if cleaning the aircraft of all the paint will cost less than $100,000. I am sure that when they planned (premeditation) this little show they had a very valid logic to doing this. Tonight, they are probably realizing the depth of their troubles. I understand that in the UK it's a minimum one-year jail sentence. Also, good luck travelling with a criminal trespass charge against you. I am relatively certain that the airline industry will ...

Janet Yellen from China supporter to Hawk...

There is rarely serious news in the world these days, it seems that most newspapers are filled with headlines and little else, and then Ms Yellen went to China. Secretary Yellen has long been known in the Biden administration as the voice of moderation when dealing with China, yet as her trip which concluded yesterday a hawk was born: She warned the Chinese against dumping goods in the United States. fighting words! The American administration is very concerned about the lack of Chinese domestic consumption. Even before the COVID-19 epidemic, there were already the beginning signs of a slowdown, automobile sales were off. China is facing domestic deflation (a clear sign of collapsing demand) China imports few consumer goods, they import raw materials and intermediary goods. It seems that the American administration is concerned that the Chinese administration will dump consumer goods abroad to keep its manufacturing machinery ...

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