The Prince of Wales, Mortgages, Facehole and Random Thoughts

The Prince of Wales and his trusty steed Camilla are visiting our fair country and I am glad to see that folks are treating him with the respect that he is due. Will he be the next King? We shall see; if he is, he may not last very long, but then again, his Dad is 91, so he may last longer. It’s nice they let him bring his horse with him too, and Camilla doesn’t have too many flies on her.

There was more upheaval in Quebec with the students, causing consternation for all involved. This cannot end well (in my estimation), but maybe it will resolve itself over the summer. Kettling is the new police tactic, since it worked so well at the G-8 meetings last year, we do live in exciting times.

The country’s rails are mostly silent thanks to a strike at Canadian Pacific, and it should be interesting to see what the ramifications of this is going to be. In Ottawa, the Via trains to Toronto now consist of a bus to Kingston and a train to Toronto because CP owns the tracks to Kingston (from Ottawa). There’s nothing like expecting a train and getting crammed into a bus instead.

Last week the finance minister quipped about Canadians being too picky when finding jobs. No one seems to have jumped on him too hard about that one, but speaking as someone who has done some pretty crappy jobs in his time, I think his point of view is “skewed” at best (wrong at worst).

Facebook’s IPO seems to be crumbling a little with the valuation dropping, wonder what that means? At least Zuckerburg got married and dumped a bunch of his stock (thus he has some REAL money to play with now).

Weekly Recap

I have been kettling some of my own topics this week, but hopefully they were not too arresting:

• With Happy Victoria Day and Monday’s Best I took my normal Sunday post and moved it to Monday (since it was a long weekend).
• New inflation figures were out from Stats Canada and April’s CPI Child is Still Inflating I wander through some of the more interesting data.
• Money is a very important issue with psychology and I put on my amateur Psychologist hat with Financial Psychology: Buying and Selling Homes.
• It’s always fun to bring animal analogies and Property Taxes: Housing Bubble’s Lamprey, I point out how property taxes are much like the Lamprey (sucking the life out of you).
• Podcasts, Dragons et Les Etudiants (mon dieu) and Random Thoughts Jean Charest has slammed the door shut on my Quebecois Student brethren, and they will have to finish their terms in August?

And thanks to those who added me on Twitter . Check out my Facebook page as well.

Links for the Week

With Europe threatening to implode (financially) and other interesting issues arising with this what did our favorite writers write about this week:

• Larry MacDonald writes about the Facebook face-off, which was written before the IPO happened, but I think any money you put in FB better be your “lottery money” because as an investment it is pretty risky (in my opinion).
• Canada Mortgage News writes how CMHC under OSFI control is a kick in the butt to Canadians, an interesting perspective, have a read and see if you agree.
• Mr. Money Mustache let’s Mrs. Money Mustache write Routine Will Oil the Machine, good to see a blogger let his wife (or spouse) have a say.
• The Blunt Bean Counter wonders Cottages – Cost Base Additions, are they a new CRA Tax Audit target? I don’t really care, since I don’t have a cottage, but they do seem to be a point of contention on many levels (not just for the CRA).
• Michael James tries a different tactic with the tax folks and points out that you can try Income Splitting with TFSAs, have a look maybe you can do this too?
• Canadian Capitalist points out that stock options have been replaced as benefits at many firms but what about the Tax Treatment of Restricted Stock Unit Benefits? I wouldn’t know, there is little or no change of me getting those.
• The Canadian Couch Potato had a reader Ask the Spud: Does Home Bias Ever Make Sense? I am a homer, I hold far too much of my investments in Canada, but for now, I have not been burned.
• Echo of Boomer and Echo asks Will a Pension Plan Handcuff you to a Job? Yes, is the simple answer, unless you are really young, and you don’t care (or opt out of the pension plan).
• Miranda at Planting Money Seeds, gives us a video of Great Advice from Neil Gaiman, quite a fun little speech.
• Gail Vaz-Oxlade points out that the Baby Boomers (the generation to follow the Greatest Generation Ever), were not perfect in her writing Sins of the Father , don’t let Baby Boomers tell you they got it right, because I think they have as much blame in our current mess as anyone else.
• Preet is still working on his Podcasts and speaking of which did you listen to: Podcast 4 yet? It’s a corker! He also does write about Holding a Mortgage Inside your RRSP (Redux), do you do that? I’d be curious to talk to someone who does this.