Juggling Dynamite

As the commodity drubbing continues today, the Canadian dollar index has made a fresh 52 week low and is now at levels not seen since 2003-05.

The chart here since 1981 offers a helpful long-term view.  Closing below .75 last Friday, and below .74 today, the new test band is the .70-.75 range where the loonie bottomed in prior cycles (see yellow box below).

However, now at the end of the late great commodity super cycle of 2001-11, and with the price of crude still falling and Canada’s housing and household credit bubble yet to deflate, a return into the red zone where the loonie submerged 1998-2003 cannot be ruled out.

So good to hear someone state the comprehensive case for renewable energy. Of course this is happening. The only incredible part is that so many people waste so much energy fighting against common sense.

Stanford professor Mark Jacobson (follow his work on Twitter here) was lead author on a study indicating that most countries can switch to run entirely on clean energy (including transportation) as early as 2050. Here is a direct video link.

This is a painfully long process this cycle, it is just getting started…but if we are ever to repair the financial devastation unrestrained bankers have inflicted on the world over the last 20 years, we must keep pushing them back into the bottle of regulation, speculating/trading arms severed from government backed deposits, holding executives personally accountable for crimes. As these firms downsize and retreat from operations that were previously profitable, this is progress.  Much more of this to come.

Sources tell Bloomberg that an additional 20% of investment bank employees at Barclays may lose their jobs. Here is a direct video link.