Bonam

They are competitive in much of Canada.

Every generation there are various end of the world predictions made based on the problems of the day. Today's issues are small in comparison to those faced in the past. - In the 60s-80s, there was the fear of global nuclear annihilation as part of the Cold War. - In the 40s, we had an apocalyptic war that left many of the greatest nations of the day in ruins. - In the 20s-30s, we had the depression. As for the issues of today that you mention: - Demographic collapse will become irrelevant in the face of skyrocketing life expectancies, as people will be able to work far longer. Secondly, less labor will be needed to begin with, as automation will continue to make many labor-intensive jobs obsolete. - Debt is a problem but it's a paper problem only. Any country can simply declare bankruptcy with no measurable effect on its long term prospects, just a bit of short term pain for its creditors. Costs of borrowing will be a bit higher after the bankruptcy for a few years, then go back to what they were as people regain confidence in its economy. - Public education includes some pretty dumb stuff in Western countries these days, yes, but meanwhile students in other parts of the world are learning more math and science than ever before. And, Western universities continue to produce people capable of impressive technological innovation. - Educational fads like discovery math last long enough for people to realize just how badly they failed, then they slowly die away. The desire of parents to see their kids do well relative to other kids is enough to ensure this. - Social Justice is an evil ideology, but it will eventually be relegated to the dustbin of history along with Nazism and Communism and all other ideologies that try to blame all of society's ills on a scapegoat race/class (in this case the white male) - The fraction of GDP that Western economies spend on energy continues to decline, not rise

At some point China gets to be reclassified as "developed" and then you'll see a big jump in that graph.

Technological progress is only speeding up, not slowing down. If the rate of GDP growth per capita is related to the rate of technological progress, I don't think it's going anywhere. Furthermore, stats from the vantage point of 2015 look distorted due to the "lost decade" of the 2000s. One could have easily asked the same question, about whether growth is permanently slowing down, in the 1920s or in the 1940s, and yet things picked right back up shortly thereafter. As your graph shows, there were big deviations from the straight line before, and the current dip is far smaller than those experienced in the past. Civilization is on the verge of major transformations in biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and nanotechnology. Much as the internet totally transformed society from the 1980s to today, other technologies will transform it over the coming decades. Even energy technologies, long mired in only linear progress while everything else advanced exponentially, are on the verge of important breakthroughs over the next few decades. All these technologies will generate unprecedented new opportunities for economic growth and productivity gains. As for what governments can do about it... the best they can do is try to stay out of the way of technological innovation by not imposing overly burdensome regulations and restrictions, while funding scientific and applied research and education.

For how many years have you consistently outperformed the market? Are you a billionaire? Because if you've consistently outperformed the market for a timescale long enough to have statistical significance, you should be. I should be reading about Argus's words of wisdom right alongside those of Warren Buffet in all those random investing articles that get posted online.

All the stats show that the vast majority of actively managed mutual funds under-perform low cost passive index funds like SPY over the long term. A financial advisor is just there to enrich themselves. The vast majority are not adding anything to your returns, but are charging a hefty fee for their services anyway. Unlike many other professionals that work with clients, financial advisors do not legally owe their clients a fiduciary duty. So yes. I'd recommend investing on your own. It's not difficult, there are many discount online stock brokers that you can open an account with. I'd probably look at Virtual Brokers as they seem to be the cheapest in Canada that I've heard of. Alternately, all the big banks have their own associated online brokerages, and you should be able to open an account with whichever bank you do most of your business with and trade online through their website. You should be able to open an account entirely online. In the US, there are now many "roboadvisor" brokerages like wealthfront and betterment. They will automatically set up a portfolio of ETFs for you and do all the stuff a typical financial advisor would do, but at a small fraction of the cost. However, I'm not sure if these services are available in Canada yet. If you're in Canada, I would recommend splitting your investments between an ETF that tracks the TSX index (like XIU) and an ETF that tracks the S&P500 (like SPY). You can throw in an ETF or two that tracks international markets in there as well, if you like. I wouldn't put it all into US securities because that exposes you to too much currency risk. For example, if you buy SPY now and then the Canadian dollar returns to parity with the US dollar, then your investment in SPY will lose ~32% of its value in Canadian dollars (or it could gain value if the Canadian dollar falls further relative to USD, but the point is it's an extra layer of risk on top of the risk of owning the S&P index itself). Also, check that your brokerage allows for automatic dividend reinvestment. Most of these ETFs pay in the neighborhood of 2-3% annual dividends (usually split up into 4 quarterly payments) and you don't want those small batches of cash just ending up sitting in your account where you'll have to pay $5-10 per transaction to invest it into something. Instead, some brokerages will allow those dividend to be automatically reinvested into more shares of the stock/ETF, some will even allow you to hold "fractional shares" in this way (useful if your investments are relatively small and the quarterly dividend isn't enough to buy a whole share). 2-3% dividends may not sound like much, but over the long term they make up a big chunk of overall stock market returns and you want to make the compounding work for you. But before you dive into investing, do some introductory reading online. Lots of good info out there for beginners. A few evenings reading and learning will set you financially free.

In general, you'll find my arguments revolve much less around legal considerations than practical ones. In the course of commenting here, I don't really care very much if something is legal or illegal, I care whether it's a good idea or a bad idea.

Here's where I am today: Here's where I was in 2011: Looks like over time I'm slowly getting less right wing but more libertarian.

Given that the US supplies Saudi Arabia with some of the most advanced weapons systems in the world anyway, nothing would be gained by Canada not selling weapons there.

Putting aside everything else... how the heck did no one see the gun the first time he pulled it out? How did no one even glance at the guy as he was standing there right while they are doing their interview? Just seems a bit odd somehow.

In many cases people think the opposite. That due to their condition, problems, etc, they are placing an excessive burden on their family, and that they can make the lives of others easier/better by committing suicide. Whether that perception is correct or not is another matter, of course.

Yeah I've got stocks I own just for fun as well. They make up probably 1/4 of my equities or so. The rest just goes to index funds like SPY.

I mostly avoid individual stock picking cause I don't have the time to research them enough. Plus, stats show that almost no financial professionals can outperform the market as a whole over the long term, and while I'm smart, I doubt I would be better than 90% of professionals in a field that I'm not even in So instead, I mostly just buy SPY.

Doesn't look like things went down very much today That's why it's useless to try to guess which way stock markets will go on any given day. The only things that can be said about stock markets with any certainty better than a guess are long term, statistical, statements.

Yes, there are plenty of examples. Depends on if the country is stupid or not. If it's not stupid, see Iceland. Declare bankruptcy, screw your creditors, and keep on going as if nothing happened. If it is stupid, see Greece. Take on a bunch of extra debt and sell off all your assets in a fire sale to foreign entities, ensuring your economy will be in ruins for the foreseeable future.

Stop with the milli-aggressions! I'm gonna call the anti-bias forum-climate squad!

Doesn't matter if you don't understand why something might be offensive to someone. All that matters is that they feel it is offensive. If you continue to make the offensive statement then you are an [fill in the blank here]. Sound like a familiar argument at all? http://www.mapleleafweb.com/forums/topic/24659-microaggressions/

Not a big deal unless you were planning to sell them soon, or unless those stocks are getting cheaper because the companies in question are actually doing poorly. If the stocks are getting cheaper as part of a broad market selloff while the underlying fundamentals remain solid, then I don't see why you would worry about the current price. In fact, if you own particular stocks because you think those companies have solid growth/return prospects, then you should take the opportunity of them getting cheaper to buy even more!

Great, then if they go down even more we can all buy some more when they're even cheaper!

Naw, msj is precisely correct. The stock market is on sale right now. It doesn't particularly matter if the sale will deepen tomorrow or if prices will start to go back up, because no one can know that. I like buying things when they're on sale. It's funny, most people like to buy stocks when they are overpriced and run away from them when they're on a discount. Great way to lose money. This time isn't any different than every other time. The world isn't ending. Stocks will eventually go up to new all time highs (whether it takes a week, a month, a year, or a decade), and any significant pullback from previous all time highs is a great buying opportunity.

BC is already ahead of most of the world since it's energy is mainly supplied by hydro. No getting left in the dust there.

Nope, but I am again now

Electricity in BC is generally pretty cheap.

Nice buying opportunities at today's open! Already up 5% on a bunch of the stuff I bought this morning.

Aren't they anyway? What's the interest rate been like on government bonds for the last 10 years or so? Hasn't even kept up with inflation.