The economy

[milehigh]

Want to especially ask the Ladies, is it picking up?

I have a feeling it is.... got 3 little side-lines going and all of them seem to be doing ok, not booming, but nicely ok. My 4th sideline was a contract, it wasn't renewed, but now they are talking about it.

For all 4, last year was aweful. This year has been considerably better..... not boom times, but pretty good. I was even surpised I got some word of mouth biz without advertizing.

How's everyone else finding it?

I find when the nay-sayers put negative thoughts in people's heads about recession, it spreads like wild-fire and feeds itself. So hope we are past that.

 

[TeasePlease]

As one astute an insightful lady put it to me today, we're about to get assfucked without lube. Once Euro goes, and it will go, we're all going for a spin cycle. Then the disaster that is the US economy will get the "yeah, you too asshole".

I too wonder how the adult biz is doing. Its usually a good barometer for discretionary spending.

 

[MPAsquared]

Hobbies/addictions/vices all pick up in hard times. Everyone needs an outlet.

 

[Bubbles99]

Past that??? Look at Europe... it is a depression in Spain, Greece... soon to be Italy. UK is in recession. Germany's economy is shrinking.. just a matter of time before it spreads, afterall it is a global economy

You have the Canadian government trying to deflate the unsustainable housing bubble... will be interesting to see how steep the correction is, considering avg house prices have increased 84% in 10 years. It was a collapse of the housing market that caused Spain's problems.

It will get worse, much worse here, but put on your rosy glasses, ignore reality and keep telling yourself everything is getting better..

Agreed! this recovery is a smoke screen. The worse has yet to come!

 

[lenny2]

FS was being offered in Vancouver's "Georgia Straight" newspaper for as low as $50-80 back in June.

 

[milehigh]

I'd be interested to know how Sp's and business owners are finding it.

 

[GG2]

I'd be interested to know how Sp's and business owners are finding it.

You won't get any honest replies.

 

[Big Sleazy]

Well they keep buying my pantyhose. Maybe they need them to rob banks? Do the banks have any money? Maybe I should fuck the banks, or the people who bail out the banks. On second thought, forget it. Politicians make me feel unclean.

Psst....fyi....the banks have no money. Never did. They print the money - or make an entry on a computer screen - and then charge everyone interest. It's a great scam. The greatest of all time. And that folks is why we are always in perpetual debt.

BS

 

[Mark Service]

Past that??? Look at Europe... it is a depression in Spain, Greece... soon to be Italy. UK is in recession. Germany's economy is shrinking.. just a matter of time before it spreads, afterall it is a global economy

You have the Canadian government trying to deflate the unsustainable housing bubble... will be interesting to see how steep the correction is, considering avg house prices have increased 84% in 10 years. It was a collapse of the housing market that caused Spain's problems.

It will get worse, much worse here, but put on your rosy glasses, ignore reality and keep telling yourself everything is getting better..

That is an incredibly accurate assessment which (although speculative) I agree with 100%.

Europe is a false economy still. They have unelected socialists heading up the IMF/ECB gasping to keep the EU together and stave off competition with loans to pay off loans.

America is and even more false economy as Dems are going to do 2 things heading in to election to inflate employment numbers:
1 - QE3 (printing shit loads more money) which essentially is robbing the wealth of retired people on fixed income as the value of a dollar goes down).
2 - Borrow right up to the debt ceiling and "create" jobs.

Thank goodness Canada is huge and we have all kinds of stuff to pull out of the ground and sell to emerging markets like China Brazil and India.

WHEN will it get better?
1) when western economies become a friendly place to do business - sorry Unions, (other than teachers and cops) your miserable existence is now a detriment to blue collar workers.
2) when prime lending rate goes above 3% (this will correct housing/credit quagmire).
3) governments start balancing their budgets (seen the US debt clock lately? http://www.usdebtclock.org/) -500 billion a month and counting...
4) trade deficits between west and China shrink. Transfer of wealth from west to east in the past 3 decades is astronomical.

then you will see the private sector (which has some huge cash on the books) loosen the purse string and employment numbers will look better.
Problem is there is a lot of pain to go through still and on the other side of it

 

[milehigh]

There is a lot of doom and gloom, and rightly so about the economy. However, maybe the system is not working and needs to be fixed. We created the "system" and the tail is now wagging the dog.

In the meantime, I guess anyone in biz should just shoot themselves and get it over with. What we need are solutions, strategies. All we hear is doom and gloom. However, we all have to get by and survive the mess.

 

[TeasePlease]

The solution is massive wealth creation. Easier said than done.

The alternative is debt forgiveness and a fresh start.

What was that about moral hazard?

 

[nuprin001]

A couple of points:

1.) Capitalism never promised that everything would always be good. Things haven't been good for about a decade and a half. Even when things were "good" during that time, they were only moderately good in comparison to true boom times. Go figure: you add ~3.5 BILLION people into the world economy (Eastern Europe, China, and India really hit the global economy in the last 15 years), and there's going to be a giant correction.

2.) If you're in real estate in Canada right now, cash out. I don't know what the capital gains taxes are like, but if you can park that money in something stable (ie- not real estate or stocks) without losing any of it to taxes, do so. Soon. Wait for the real estate market to bust out, and then buy everything back and then some at bargain basement prices. That's been my excuse to visit Canada for the last couple of years: I've been scouting out neighborhoods and the like to get a good feel of TO, so I know what properties to be interested in when things fall apart.

There is opportunity in all things. Cash in hand is incredibly valuable when the market goes down the tubes. Don't try to time things too precisely. You're not good enough to sell everything on the last day properties are at their peak value, and you're not good enough to buy everything at the absolute bottom price. Be satisfied with making a few hundred thousand and quit losing sleep over a few grand.

 

[Curious36]

A housing bubble means NOTHING to me. I need a place to keep me warm and dry till the day I die. If my house is worth less when I croak then my heirs will recieve less......no big deal.

 

[TheDr]

If the banks and Wall Street were as strictly regulated as the cutoff for breakfast at McDonalds, the economy would be in much better shape.

 

[nuprin001]

A housing bubble means NOTHING to me. I need a place to keep me warm and dry till the day I die. If my house is worth less when I croak then my heirs will recieve less......no big deal.

So you're never going to move from your current housing? Really? That is just short-sighted. Do you own your home? If so, is it paid off? If it isn't paid off, do you have a fixed or variable rate mortgage? Do you know what would happen to your home if you ended upside-down with your mortgage, if you still have a mortgage? Do you know what would happen to you if your neighborhood went bad with a housing bust? Las Vegas has a lot of beautiful neighborhoods full of McMansions that are nothing but meth dens and ghost towns after the housing bubble burst there. It can happen to you, too.

If the banks and Wall Street were as strictly regulated as the cutoff for breakfast at McDonalds, the economy would be in much better shape.

Right. Because the highly regulated European banking system is doing much better, right?

Again, capitalism never promised that things would always be good. As a matter of fact, it pretty much promises the opposite. There will always be fluctuations. All over-regulation does is buy less variation at usurious interest rates, so when things do go bad they go very, very bad.

Theoretically, a omniscient government can manage the ups and downs of an economy. That's the assumption behind Keynesian economics, which is a lot of the basis for government meddling in the economy. It also assumes that government bureaucrats who are paid the same whether they do a good job or not have the ability and motivation to actually properly run an economy while being constantly interfered with by grandstanding politicians.

Give me a nice, greedy corporate executive any day. At least he's going to be predictable, which allows me to plan and account for him. The unpredictable nature of government interference is what scares the heck out of small business owners.

 

[TeasePlease]

So when's the Toronto real estate crash/correction going to happen? Do you agree with Scotia Bank that it will happen by 2014 and the correction will only be 10%?

If it's one thing I've learned over the past decade or so, trying to interpret and analyze the real estate market is a mugs game. Economic indicators are only relevant if the market participants behave rationally. So, who really gives a poop about historical highs, mortgage ratios, unemployment data, etc. Even if China is faltering, and Europe has faltered, it doesn't mean that Canada will go tits up. If anything, we will prosper. Money has to go somewhere. That's why our real estate market has continued to rock. Europeans and Asians are desperate to get their cash invested outside of the fallout zone, and hard assets are the preferred buy.

On the bright side, consumer debt levels seem to be stabilizing. The average joe isn't drinking the koolaid and spending beyond his means.

The next dip will not be like the 2008/2009 hit.

 

[Curious36]

So you're never going to move from your current housing? Really? That is just short-sighted. Do you own your home? If so, is it paid off? If it isn't paid off, do you have a fixed or variable rate mortgage? Do you know what would happen to your home if you ended upside-down with your mortgage, if you still have a mortgage? Do you know what would happen to you if your neighborhood went bad with a housing bust? Las Vegas has a lot of beautiful neighborhoods full of McMansions that are nothing but meth dens and ghost towns after the housing bubble burst there. It can happen to you, too.

Thanks for your input. I have a very small mortgage on the house, so that is basically a non-issue. To address your first point....yes I am going to be moving in the next year or so. The way I look at it is like this....if the housing bubble bursts, the burst will be felt by everyone....thus if my house I sell is worth less, the house I buy will be worth less as well. One kinda negates the other...Short sighted? nah....realistic.

 

[sexyblond12]

You won't get any honest replies.

I really hate negative people
I was reading all the threads to reply when I saw this comment
REALLY???
May is generally slow was not a bad month
June also a slow month was super slow this year
July slow start but good by the end
August good but still not comparable to last year for me anyhow
Last year in the summer I would have an hour session look at my phone after the hour and I would have had 20 texts and 25 missed calls
This summer I would say that is reduced by 75 %
Albeit I have changed my hometown location but still visit my usual areas
Any thought 2012 disaster to be a financial one ???

 

[Mod100]

I really hate negative people
I was reading all the threads to reply when I saw this comment
REALLY???
May is generally slow was not a bad month
June also a slow month was super slow this year
July slow start but good by the end
August good but still not comparable to last year for me anyhow
Last year in the summer I would have an hour session look at my phone after the hour and I would have had 20 texts and 25 missed calls
This summer I would say that is reduced by 75 %
Albeit I have changed my hometown location but still visit my usual areas
Any thought 2012 disaster to be a financial one ???

I've talked to a number of the ladies in the last week and all but one are experiencing what you have said.

As we all can see there is a significant number of ladies now offering an August special. If September doesn't show significant improvement then I feel this could be a long term problem. But let's not panic.

 

[TeasePlease]

If my business took a 75% drop, I'd be changing my underwear.

Some spas are dead slow, some are running at full capacity and still turning away clients. It's wise to be attentive to macroeconomic trends. But, good businesses will always survive and even thrive. Just don't take anything (or anyone!) for granted, always look to improve your product/service and keep your eyes on your own ball.

As for houses, it's all relative. It doesn't really matter unless/until you're entering the market or exiting the market. BUT, not every area will be hit the same way. Owning a million-dollar townhouse at Highway 7 and Warden carries much different risk than owning a million-dollar semi at Yonge and Lawrence.