I am in Vancouver speaking at the World Resource Conference this Sunday and Monday. It is one of the largest forums for resource investment in North America. You can learn more about the show, speakers and Agenda here on the Cambridge House web site. Attendees can register for free in advance on the web site. It is always extremely well organized and attended.
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I find it very interesting that this resource gatherings happen at or around the peak of the global industrial growth. I viewed as a bad omen.
Actually they happen throughout each year regardless of where we are at in the cycle. This show has been running for years each June and January.
Last time I attended one in Vancouver in 2006 or '07, when all source of resource and mining firms tried to unload their shares, also when Jerry White promoted the big tax brake on exploration limited partnerships. In that time everything was already priced to perfection, but they said if I need some diamond mining shares they can provide them for cheap.
We all know now what happened after……
Danielle,
I was fortunate to catch your presentation this morning at the Cambridge Resource Conference; and was duly impressed by the pragmatic, intelligent nature of your sound world economic and investment outlook.
Your session was highly valuable and has stimulated and heightened my awareness to key themes: capital velocity; investment vs speculating prinicpals; realities of our new economy.
The best 30 minutes I spent — Thank you for the tremendous insights !!
Sacha Fernandes
Vancouver BC Canada
Hi Danielle,
I hope you enjoyed your visit to Vancouver. I have to ask, what do you think of our provincial government's decision to allow people with children under 18 to defer paying their property taxes? Is it not common sense that if you cannot pay your property tax, you have too much house and debt? I say this because I have friends who are sooo relieved that they can now do this. These are the same people who only live in a house because their parents took out equity in their own homes to give their kids a large down payment to get into 600-700k houses.
Amazing – unfortunately it's gotta end badly.
More fun in Europe
Spanish public workers take to the streets to protest wage cuts
By Barbara Kollmeyer, MarketWatch
MADRID (MarketWatch) — A 24-hour strike called by Spain’s biggest trade unions got off to a mostly peaceful start on Tuesday, as government and union officials presented vastly different figures on involvement of those workers.
Public-sector employees are protesting government austerity measures that will cut individual salaries for public workers in health and education, among other fields, from this month. Demonstrations took place across Spain, with some calling for Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to resign, according to Spanish media reports.
Earlier in the day, at the large governmental offices of Nuevo Ministerios, which is home for the housing and environmental ministry among others, protesters waved red banners, blew whistles, and blocked some entrances as they tried to persuade fellow workers headed to their jobs, to join the action.
The main unions here, the UGT, CCOO and the CSI-CSIF said participation of its members was at 75.3%, but the government said it was more around 11%, noting few disruptions to services, according to Spanish news agency Efe.
Worker strikes begin across Spain on Monday, protesting government cuts to public-sector pay. Protestors gathered in front of the Housing Ministry.
Unlike what has been seen in Greece earlier this year, when a bank was set on fire with loss of life over austerity measures there, protests in Spain were so far without much incident. In Barcelona, though, earlier in the day a group of protesters burned tires, cutting off traffic to an exit for Diagonal de Barcelona, a main artery that crosses the city, said Efe.
Last month, the Spanish parliament barely approved a contested 15 billion euro ($18 billion) in spending cuts, after a tense debate in which the future of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero was hanging in the balance. See austerity measures
In addition to cutting public-sector pay, the austerity measures also call for suspending automatic inflation-adjusted pensions and scrapping a payout that parents get for the birth of new children.
The strikes Tuesday are also seen as testing grounds for unions that may call for further action if the government imposes labor-market reforms that infringe on workers’ rights. Labor reforms have been a long time in coming in Spain, but have taken on new urgency with the government’s pressing deficit issues, with more pressure coming from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, not to mention ratings agencies for Spain to speed up this process.
The government earlier this year announced €50 billion in austerity measures, but it has come under increasing pressure by financial markets to come up with more savings to bring its debt-to-GDP ratio down to 3% by 2013 — it was 11.2% in 2009 — and shake off the naysayers who make parallels with Greece’s dire economic conditions and those of Spain. See also How much should markets really fear Spain?
Barbara Kollmeyer is an editor for MarketWatch in Madrid.
Excellent analysis
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/Go%20To%20Cash.pdf
Daryl, I heard this from a couple of BC clients now, where they were advised by others to consider defering realty taxes. I think its a bad idea. If we don't have the cash flow to pay bills in the regular course, then I think we should look at downsizing costs, rather than kicking the debts into the future.