We’ve been making wine with our father for as long as I can remember.
It’s a multi-decade family tradition.
And see that non-smile on our father’s face? Don’t mistake that for his happiness level.
These days are the happiest of the year for him.
He’s almost 86 years old now, and has had an interesting life.
He was born close to a town called Split, Croatia.
Grew up under a communist government.
Went to jail for 2 weeks in a coastal town called Makarska for singing a national Croatian song that was deemed “inappropriate” and an offence by the government.
Escaped the country by walking over some mountain ranges and declared refugee status in Austria. He then was faced with a choice, to either be sent back or accept the Catholic Church’s offer to pay for a boat trip to Canada or Australia.
He chose Canada to be a bit closer to his parents and some sisters who were back in Croatia.
Met our mom at Palais Royale in Toronto. He’s a trained ballroom dancer and apparently put on quite the show.
Our Mom is also an immigrant to Canada, from Scotland.
A couple comments on this…
OK, let’s move on…
There are moments in your life where great change occurs and if you’re situated properly you can ride these trends into the sunset.
Case in point…
Before the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, no one had heard of the concept of “Quantitative Easing” or QE.
But it became a thing.
And when that happened it dumped new cash into the economy at a quantity that we had never seen. Interest rates were artificially suppressed for over a decade.
Now, why would we care about such weird central banking actions?
Well, this absolutely juiced the real estate market.
Those years and years of low rates took properties in Ontario from 200K to $1M over 10 years.
(Yes, we were really buying fully detached homes in Hamilton, Ontario for $200K back in 2007).
Now, during any “crisis” the central banks know they can just toss in some QE and save the economy.
Case in point…the pandemic of 2020.
Things got so “hot” that they had to raise rates over 2022 and 2023 to ensure the value of the dollars didn’t reach hyperinflation status.
In Canada, that created the great condo boom that’ll take a little while to crawl out of.
Today, the U.S. has to refinance about $9 trillion in debt over the next year. That’s insane. In 2008, the total U.S. Federal debt was about $8T.
Now they’re going to try and refinance $9T in one year.
Canada is about to release a budget update that’s sure to blow the socks of any projections anyone had a year ago.
So can you guess what’s coming our way? Likely lower rates.
Rightly or wrongly the powers-that-be need lower rates to pull all of this off.
So five years from today, although the real estate market seems slow right now, we’re likely going to see scarce things, like single family homes, at much higher dollar prices from here (in our humble opinion).
Just look at the at the level of building permits in Ontario (source: EdgeAnalytics.ca):
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Sophisticated investors who look at things like actual cash flows are getting pretty excited about this type of stuff right now.
And there’s a new twist to all of this.
Check out this chart of the S&P 500 and Total Job Openings in the U.S. as reported by the Bureau of Labor (source X.com @infraa_):
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Can you see when Artificial Intelligence arrived on the scene?
It’s pretty obvious there’s a new great change in the mix.
No companies really want to admit that they’re totally confused about what AI means to their business or industry but we know, for a fact, that many boardrooms are having discussions about all this right now.
Junior job hirings are on hold in many places. We know of two such companies in Canada that have absolutely paused hiring until they figure out what AI means to their business.
If you can position yourself properly in times like this there can be great opportunities for you, your family and even your community.
And this is exactly what we’ll be breaking down at the Your Life. Your Terms. Event with a brand new Rock Star Economic Update and a second presentation on “New Finance”.
You’re not gonna want to miss this.
You can check out all the details right here…
But we have bad news. We’re almost full. Maybe 10% of space left.
If you want to attend this you’re gonna want to act now.
These are truly incredible times.
History definitely repeats but with new twists each time. These new twists help us live life on our terms if we stay aware.
What a time to be alive.
See you on Saturday, October 18.
Tom & Nick
