Another round of some of the finest money tweets of the week, hope you enjoy Why is it that the Chinese stock market and economy confuses my simple mind? Not sure I completely agree with… Read More »More Great Personal Finance Tweets for the Week
The last 10 days or so have been quite volatile on the markets with wild drops, sudden spurts up and indecision and confusion on whether this is a “correction,” a “collapse,” or a “great time to buy.” To quote a well-known media maven I’m an Indexer I don’t Care What the Index Did Today, although I did buy in the middle of all of this, because I had money to put in my son’s RDSP (but that is very long-term savings, so again, who cares). There is agreement that China’s economic cogitations seem to have been a catalyst for all this market tom-foolery, but we will only know for sure in a few months when we look back on things.
Is this a good time to buy into the market? Will oil stocks rebound? How will a minority government affect our economy? To quote Kent Brockman, ” Professor, without knowing precisely what the danger is, would you say it’s time for our viewers to crack each other’s heads open and feast on the goo inside”. Do you have any Gorgonzola (see video at bottom for explanation)? I can answer this and many other questions: “I have no bloody idea!”.
It seems like my Twitter feed might make it to 2500 actual followers (I haven’t paid for any followers, nor have I used skullduggery to inflate those numbers either).
Back to school is here again, with schools opening next week, and in some corners schools have already opened. I can tell it is back to school time, as there is Haloween candy in the stores as well.
My Writings for Week Ending August 28th
The summer is slowly coming to a close and an entertaining fall lies ahead (with plenty of election shenanigans and tom-foolery) :
More inflation numbers seem to be ignored on the campaign front, with Gas Dampening the CPI for July. Oil at $40 a barrel is a doubled-edged sword that is cutting the Canadian economy to pieces.
I went back to my archives for a follow-up on my problems with loyalty cards getting hacked with Auto Loading Your Loyalty Card is a Bad Idea, and it really is a very bad idea.
A real oldie but goody for me is to remember that In Banking All is Negotiable, and I will be going in to spread happiness at my local TD branch following my own advice.
I was tickled pink to see that my favourite party had returned, the Rhinoceros Party for this election. This party had a plank in their platform about damming the St. Lawrence River for Hydro-Electric power. In Pierre Elliot Trudeau’s riding, it ran another candidate with the name Pierre Trudeau (I got to vote in that election in that very riding). Their first plank for this election in their platform? Nationalize Tim Horton’s! Glad to see the return to common sense politics.
I was glad to see Steadyhand come out with the commentary Good Debt, Bad Debt which points out the alarming rise in Canadian debt. Tom Bradley’s commentaries about the Banks encouraging an already heavily in debt society that a concept of “Good Debt” distresses him, and I agree. With low-interest rates about to go away, what will happen when the rates go up? Thanks to reader @Gene2u for pointing this out. An excellent article.
The rest of the parties seem very excited about the Mike Duffy trial, except for Mr. Harper, who hopes we aren’t watching it. We’ve lost 1 or 2 candidates thanks to unfortunate tweets in their past (I guess I’ll never be running for public office) as well. That is about all that has been going on in the election.
Gas prices continue to drop, which is bound to screw up the CPI for the coming months, but with oil sitting at below $40 a barrel, it is about time that gas prices dropped. Is this doing any good for Canada? It depends on where you live. If you live in Alberta, NO!
The summer is slowly coming to a close, and an entertaining fall lies ahead (with plenty of election shenanigans and tom-foolery):
Before the dawn of oppressive bank fees my idea of having a bank account at whatever bank that was near my work was a great idea, however since high bank fees became the norm, A Great Financial Idea Dies.
As if I really needed more reasons to espouse changing banks if you are being treated shabbily, however somehow I found More Reasons to Change Your Bank.